President Reagan’s speech in Peking, in which he tried to emphasize that China and the United States have mutual interests, was reportedly countered by complaints about his Administration’s policies on Central America, the Middle East, Taiwan and missiles in Europe. In addition, Chinese television omitted from its broadcast of the speech some remarks that were critical of the Soviet Union and that praised “faith and freedom” in the United States.
President Reagan stressed to Chinese leaders Friday that China and the United States have parallel international interests, but he encountered complaints about his policies in several parts of the world and found that parts of a televised speech had been censored by the Chinese. This morning, the White House issued a formal statement of regret that some of Mr. Reagan’s remarks — about the need for belief in God and in democracy, and a critical reference to the Soviet Union — had been deleted on Chinese television Friday night.
President Reagan meets with Premier Zhao to talk about bi-lateral matters having to do with trade and investments. Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang met Mr. Reagan for two 90-minute sessions, one on Friday morning on international problems and another in the afternoon on United States-Chinese concerns. During the meetings, Mr. Zhao voiced complaints about the Reagan Administration’s policies in Central America, the Middle East and Taiwan and about the deployment of new American missiles in Europe. Afterward, Hu Yaobang, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, spent an hour talking with Mr. Reagan.
This morning, Mr. Reagan spent an hour and 40 minutes with China’s paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping. Before they adjourned for a working lunch, Mr. Deng said: “Much progress has been made. The most important progress is that I met the President for the first time, so this is the most important meeting.” The two leaders declined to say how their meeting had gone, but Mr. Reagan said, “We’re still smiling.” Mr. Deng added, “Yes, I agree with him.”
The banquet hall of the Great Hall of the People, a vast ivory and gold columned room, glowed under dozens of scalloped and petal-shaped light fixtures Friday night. It was the welcoming nine-course dinner for President and Mrs. Reagan given by China’s Prime Minister, Zhao Ziyang. The guests of honor were restrained in their admiration but were obviously impressed. Most of the other guests, all earlier arrivals, were just one degree removed from awe-struck. They ignored the sweet Chinese red wine, the beer and the stronger mao tai to tour the five principal tables, each succeeding table drawing gasps of admiration from Westerners and pleased smiles of satisfaction from the Chinese.
President Reagan and his staff find recording devices in their residences and guest facilities. One staffer, Dave Fisher, opens a light switch panel, removes the bug, and takes it home as a souvenir.
Iraq said its navy destroyed three more ships in the Persian Gulf today between Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal and the Iranian port of Bandar Khomeini. A military spokesman in the Iraqi capital said all three “enemy naval targets” were afire in an area Baghdad has declared closed to shipping because of its war with Iran.
Defense Minister Moshe Arens was said today to have appointed a commission to investigate the deaths of the four Palestinians who hijacked an Israeli bus two weeks ago. The report came amid accumulating evidence that at least one of the hijackers was captured alive and killed later. There was no formal announcement of the panel’s creation. An official here in a position to know said the members included experienced military and intelligence people. The official said the panel was to be headed by a former army general, Meir Zorea, who was on the commission that investigated Israel’s unpreparedness for the 1973 war. He recently retired as Comptroller of the Defense Ministry. It has apparently not been decided whether the commission’s findings will be made public, the official indicated. Another authority said that decision would probably be made by the Cabinet after the investigation.
The army has stopped denying that any of the hijackers were captured alive and killed later. The army spokesman will say only that two died on the spot and two others “died on the way to the hospital.” The hijacking began the evening of April 12, when four Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip boarded a commuter bus from Tel Aviv to Ashkelon, a Mediterranean town to the south. About 35 passengers were aboard. The hijackers threatened the driver with a hand grenade and indicated that they had explosives. They forced the bus south into the Gaza Strip, where Israeli soldiers and policemen stopped it by shooting out the tires.
A judge fined a Swedish company $3.1 million for illegally exporting American electronic parts and equipment to the Soviet Union. The United States said that export of the equipment had enabled the Soviet Union to expand their military radar ability.
The siege of the Libyan Embassy in London ended peacefully as 30 Libyan diplomats and other occupants of the embassy entered police vans that took them to a “safe house” where they were questioned before they flew to Libya. The group was believed to have included the gunman who, according to witnesses, shot a policewoman and wounded 10 demonstrators against the Libyan Government on April 17.
The Vatican has received intelligence reports indicating that international terrorist groups are plotting to attack Pope John Paul II during his trip to South Korea next month, Vatican and diplomatic sources said today. The sources said United States and Italian intelligence services had given the reports to the Vatican. Kim Joa Soo, the South Korean envoy to the Holy See, confirmed that he had relayed the Vatican reports to Seoul. Among terrorists cited were Turkey’s neo-Nazi Gray Wolves and the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos, the sources said. Administration officials said today that the United States had transmitted to the Vatican what they described as inconclusive information about a possible threat against the Pope in South Korea.
Four past issues of a weekly newspaper in South-West Africa, The Windhoek Observer, were banned today under the territory’s anti-obscenity laws. The Observer, and its editor, Hannes Smith, have faced hostility from the authorities in the territory, also called Namibia, because it is regarded as sympathetic to black nationalists. Its editorials criticize South Africa’s domination of Namibia and contend that prominent people lead double lives. The paper also publishes a picture of a woman wearing only a bikini bottom on its back page each week.
The newspaper could be permanently banned if a publications board bans it again. Mr. Smith has said he publishes semi-nudes to highlight what he calls double standards in the censorship laws. Postcards with pictures of bare- breasted black women are displayed in Namibian stores, he says, but pictures of nude white women are termed obscene. Today Mr. Smith said The Observer would abandon its back-page picture. Instead, he said, it will publish “salacious” love letters written by prominent figures, including churchmen.
Union money will be returned by Walter F. Mondale in response to criticism from his Democratic Presidential rivals. Mr. Mondale announced that he would return an estimated $300,000, primarily in labor contributions, to committees supporting delegates who back his candidacy. His announcement came two days after saying he would terminate the disputed labor-supported committees, but would not return the money the groups had raised.
Victor M. Thompson Jr. resigned from the board of the Synthetic Fuels Corporation amid widening charges of improprieties. His resignation leaves the embattled Government- sponsored company without a quorum to conduct business. Following the resignation, two Democratic members of the Senate Energy Committee who are critics of the corporation indicated that they would try to force a review of its mission or even attempt to shut it down.
Recommissioning of the USS Iowa is to be formally declared tomorrow in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in ceremonies led by Vice President Bush. Pascagoula is one of several communities along the Mississippi Gulf Coast that are currently benefiting from the Reagan Administration’s $1,500 billion military buildup.
A new trial for Claus von Bülow was ordered by the Rhode Island Supreme Court. The court overturned his conviction two years ago of twice attempting to murder his wife on the ground that some of the evidence in the first trial was tainted by the lack of a search warrant.
David A. Kennedy’s death is now the subject of a criminal investigation, a Palm Beach County Circuit Judge said in Florida, and he refused to order the police to turn over to newspapers copies of documents relating to the death.
A murder trial was halted as it was about to begin in Dedham, Massachusetts, with the confession of the defendant, a suspended Tufts University anatomy professor, that he had killed a 21-year-old woman. Investigators said that the woman was an artist and a prostitute who charged the professor, William H. Douglas, $100 an hour and that this forced him to steal from Tufts research accounts to maintain their relationship. The confession came as Mr. Douglas pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a plea bargain agreement.
A Bryan, Texas judge has barred a white woman married to a black from reclaiming her daughter by a previous marriage, even though the United States Supreme Court threw out as illegally biased a decision that awarded custody to the girl’s father. Texas District Judge Tom McDonald Jr. issued a temporary restraining order Thursday forbidding the removal of 6-year-old Melanie Sidoti from the custody of her father, Anthony Sidoti, 28. The judge scheduled a hearing on a permanent injunction for May 4. The temporary restraining order has no effect because Mr. Sidoti has 25 days from Wednesday, when the Supreme Court delivered its ruling, to ask for a rehearing by the high court. Judge McDonald said he was acting “in the best interests of the child,” but declined to comment on his ruling.
Alaska State troopers have found the remains of two more murder victims dumped in remote locations by a confessed killer-rapist, Robert Hansen. A single bone and shreds of clothing were all that was left at two sites in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, but the authorities were able to use dental records to identify one victim. The discoveries Thursday brought to five the number of remains located this week by troopers. Mr. Hansen pointed out the locations in February after he admitted killing at least 17 women and raping 30 others over the last decade. Four other bodies were discovered before Mr. Hansen was arrested. A jawbone found near Figure Eight Lake southwest of Palmer was identified as that of Angela Fedder, a Washington State resident who was 24 years old at the time of her death. She disappeared in February 1983.
Negotiators reached an agreement today on raises and fringe benefits for workers at two big Hilton hotels in what may be a major breakthrough toward ending a 26-day strike by 17,000 Las Vegas casino-hotel employees. Both sides in the dispute, in which nearly 500 people have been arrested, said they hoped the settlement with the Hiltons, which covers culinary workers and bartenders, would have a domino effect in ending the walkout against 29 gambling casinos. Union leaders cautioned that no one would go back to work until all of the struck resorts had settled. “We have a total money figure,” said Jeff McColl, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union. “There is a disagreement on effective dates for wages and fringes.”
Georgia’s Labor Commissioner, Sam Caldwell, returned to work today for the first time since being convicted on fraud conspiracy charges, and said he would dismiss Tommy Marchant, a field deputy who testified against him. Governor Joe Frank Harris has called on Mr. Caldwell to temporarily step aside, but the Commissioner vowed to remain in office while appealing. Mr. Caldwell and a former aide, John E. Flanigan, were convicted Wednesday of conspiring to defraud the state by using state employees on state time to repair and maintain their boats for more than a decade. Mr. Caldwell said today that he intended to dismiss Mr. Marchant, saying, “He confessed to several crimes of his own while on the stand.” Mr. Marchant said he had not been notified officially of any dismissal. “I certainly plan to fight it,” he said.
Over 70 inches of snow falls on Red Lake, Montana. A stalled blizzard kept the northern Rockies and upper Plains regions paralyzed with snowdrifts as high as roofs yesterday. Over four days the storm system has also set off at least 40 tornadoes that killed 19 people and injured scores from Oklahoma to Wisconsin. Record cold settled on the Rocky Mountains, where as much as six feet of snow had fallen in places, with winds gusting above 60 miles an hour. The wind chill factor was 30 degrees below zero Fahrenheit in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Blizzard warnings were in effect from eastern Montana and northeastern Wyoming to the Nebraska Panhandle and the western Dakotas. Nearly 300 miles of Interstate 25 in Wyoming was either barricaded or impassable, as were long stretches of Interstates 80 and 90 in Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota.
Commissioner Pete Rozelle of the National Football League urged Congress yesterday to enact legislation that would restrict the ability of a sports franchise to jump from city to city. Rozelle, who in the past has unsuccessfully sought such a law, was testifying in Washington before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on a bill whose primary sponsor is Senator Slade Gorton, Republican of Washington.
The bill, which has been revised in recent weeks, would require a team seeking a move to get approval from its league and from a panel made up of one representative each from the league, the Department of Commerce and the city that would be losing the team. The team would have to convince the panel that it faced economic hardship and that there was no buyer willing to pay a fair price for the club and keep it from moving. Much of yesterday’s testimony on the measure dealt with the recent movement of the Colts from Baltimore to Indianapolis. The hearing room was filled to capacity with Baltimore residents, two of whom were the former Colt stars Johnny Unitas and Tom Matte, and many of whom wore Colt shirts and hats.
Mike Hargrove’s bases-loaded double in the top of the 19th inning leads Cleveland to an 8–4 win over Detroit in a game that takes 5 hours and 44 minutes to complete. The game at Detroit ends at 1:19 am. None of the runs in the 19th are earned as the Tigers make three errors, two by Glenn Abbott and a dropped fly by Gibson. It is only the 2nd loss of the season for the 16–2 Tigers.
At Jack Murphy, rain washes out the finish of the Dodgers-Padres in the 7th inning, as LA wins 1–0. Rick Hunnycutt allows 1 hit in the win, a safety by Luis Salazar.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1169.07 (-6.18).
Born:
Patrick Stump, American musician (Fall Out Boy), in Evanston, Illinois.
Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Canadian NHL centre (Minnesota Wild, New York Islanders), in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.
Mark Stuart, NHL defenseman (Boston Bruins, Atlanta Thrashers, Winnipeg Jets), in Rochester, Minnesota.
Luis Perdomo, Dominican MLB pitcher (San Diego Padres, Minnesota Twins), in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic.
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