President Reagan rebuffed suggestions by Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader, that he prod Taiwan into steps toward reunification with China. The suggestions were made in his final round of talks in Peking, American officials said. Later, in an interview on Chinese television, Mr. Reagan said: “We believe that this is a problem of the Chinese people on both sides of the strait to work out for themselves. We do not believe that we should involve ourselves in this internal affair.” An American official said Mr. Reagan had used virtually the same language when Mr. Deng sought to involve the United States as a broker to get talks going with Taiwan on such issues as postal links, family visits, fishing rights, technical exchanges and trade. The 100-minute meeting of the two leaders concluded Mr. Reagan’s three days of official talks in Peking.
The American officials said Mr. Reagan had declined to put pressure on Taiwan or to act as a broker. Apparently alluding to recent experience in Lebanon, the officials said the White House feared that initial dealings on “a tangential issue may lead you down a slippery slope” to deeper involvement. Although both sides wound up their talks with optimistic dinner toasts hailing the potential for Chinese-American trade, disagreements on foreign policy were underscored when Chinese television for the second day in a row censored Mr. Reagan’s indirect criticism of the Soviet Union.
In the more significant passage deleted Saturday by Chinese television, Mr. Reagan told his interviewer: “Americans are people of peace. It’s important you know that. We pose no threat to China or any nation. We have no troops massed on your borders. We occupy no lands. After World War II, we were the only undamaged industrial power, the only nation to harness the atom and the only people with the power to conquer the world. But we didn’t conquer anybody. ‘We used our power to write a new chapter in history by helping rebuild the war-ravaged economies of both friends and foes. We love peace and we cherish freedom because we’ve learned time and again in place after place that economic growth and human progress make their greatest strides when people are secure and free to think, speak, worship, choose their own way and reach for the stars.”
Mr. Reagan ordered his spokesman, Larry Speakes, to issue a public protest over the censorship of his views on foreign policy and free enterprise. “We regret the fact that statements by the President which would have given the Chinese people a better understanding of our country and its people were not included in Chinese media coverage of the speech,” a White House statement said. A Chinese spokesman said it would have been inappropriate for China to broadcast Mr. Reagan’s attack on another nation over state television.
The President and First Lady tour the Great Wall of China.
As the talks in Peking ended, White House officials said that they did not know whether President Reagan convinced Chinese leaders of the effectiveness of his policy toward the Soviet Union. It might take months before they could tell whether the Chinese had been persuaded, the Administration officials said.
President Reagan’s visit to China has attracted skeptical coverage by Soviet news organizations, which have said he is trying to draw China into a strategic embrace against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Government’s press agency, Tass, said today that Mr. Reagan was using his trip “as an opportunity for crude attacks on the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Shamelessly distorting the policy of the Soviet Union, Reagan is also going out of his way to present the aggressive policy of his Administration in various parts of the world in a favorable light,” Tass added. The coverage has been relatively restrained. Western diplomats attribute this in part to a Soviet desire not to offend China at a time when its relations with the Soviet Union seem to be improving. Concern that Mr. Reagan’s visit could draw Washington and Peking closer together to the detriment of Moscow has been a recurring theme in Soviet press reports.
China reported that a Vietnamese force occupied Chinese territory along the troubled Sino-Vietnamese border, but was wiped out by Chinese troops. The official New China News Agency said the incursion occurred in a mountainous region near the town of Laoshan in Yunnan province. It described the fighting as fierce and said all the Vietnamese were killed, but gave no numbers. Giving Hanoi’s side of recent fighting, the Vietnamese News Agency said that recently Chinese troops have made three forays across the border and have fired 5,000 artillery rounds into Vietnam.
A Turkish businessman whose wife is a secretary at the Turkish Embassy was shot and critically wounded in Iran, and Armenian guerrillas claimed responsibility for the attack, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. Isik Yonder was struck in the head by a bullet when gunmen opened fire on him and his wife, Sadiye, in Tehran. The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred shortly before Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Ozal arrived in the Iranian capital on an official visit. The businessman, Isik Yonder, was hit by a bullet in the brain when gunmen fired on him and his wife, the spokesman said. He said the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia claimed the attack. In a dispatch from Iran, the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency quoted Mr. Ozal as telling reporters: “We hope Iran will take all the necessary measures against these attacks.” His talks here are expected to deal with trade and the Iran-Iraq war.
Underground leaders of Poland’s banned Solidarity trade union movement called for street demonstrations on May 1. a workers’ holiday, while police warned that anyone taking part in protests against the government will be severely punished. Authorities have launched a crackdown on protest organizers with a number of arrests in Warsaw, Gdansk and Czestochowa. Solidarity leader Lech Walesa indicated in an interview that the protests will be far milder than those staged the last two years. when there were a number of clashes with police.
France will pay up to $3,750 to each jobless immigrant and his family who agree to return to their homeland, the Secretary of State for Immigrant Workers has announced. The move is designed to cut rising unemployment by sending home. those of France’s 3.7 million immigrants who lose their jobs. The aid would go for air fare, resettlement and job hunting in the person’s homeland. The government said it is negotiating with private firms for additional assistance that, together with other state assistance, would provide returnees between $8,750 and $12.500.
Raffaello Gelli, son of the fugitive former leader of the illegal Masonic Lodge Progaganda 2, was arrested in Arezzo, Italy, today. Raffaello Gelli, 32 years old, was suspected of helping his father, Licio Gelli, escape from a Geneva prison last August. At the time Licio Gelli was awaiting extradition to Italy on charges of conspiracy against the state and other charges in the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano in 1982. The police said the younger Mr. Gelli, who was believed to be a resident of France, was arrested in the Tuscan city where the family owns a villa. When Licio Gelli was arrested in September 1982, he was carrying a forged Argentine passport and trying to withdraw $120 million that had been transferred from Banco Ambrosiano subsidiaries to a Geneva bank.
A Soviet Cosmos rocket booster that fell from orbit Friday night and re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, creating a colorful light show in the western United States and Canada, was launched less than two weeks ago, U.S. officials said. The North American Aerospace Defense Command had been tracking the path of Cosmos 1549 across Canada, Idaho, and Utah after its April 19 launch, Major Charles Wood said. “We don’t know where it re-entered… but we have reported sightings from Utah, Canada, and Idaho,” he said.
Guerrillas fighting Morocco for the independence of the Western Sahara claimed to have killed 300 Moroccan troops in a day of heavy fighting in the territory. In a Paris communique, spokesmen for the Polisario guerrilla movement said the rebels also destroyed Moroccan arms and vehicles in fighting about 40 miles south of the town of Zag. There was no comment from Morocco. The Polisario has waged an eight-year battle for control of the former Spanish colony.
Only one American in three supports President Reagan’s Central American policies, according to the New York Times/CBS News Poll. The poll indicated a general unease over the President’s conduct of foreign affairs. It also found that nearly half of the American people were afraid that his policies in the region might lead the United States into a war there, and that the public disapproved of American involvement in the mining of Nicaraguan harbors by a margin of 67 percent to 13 percent.
A top official of a new U.S. government agency to help Africa’s poor has resigned, claiming that the Reagan Administration failed to appoint a board of directors experienced in African economic problems. Reginald E. Petty, vice president of the African Development Foundation, said he has been frustrated in efforts to establish a quality program of self-help development projects. The foundation, established by Congress in February, has yet to finance any projects.
Nigeria’s military Government has warned students and former politicians not to hold meetings or demonstrate against the Government, saying such “nefarious acts” would not go unpunished. “Any violations of a ban on political activities will not be tolerated,” Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon, the army chief of staff, said in a radio broadcast monitored in London Friday night. The brigadier is second in command to Major General Mohammed Buhari, the Government’s leader since a December 31 military coup in this West African nation ousted the civilian Government of President Shehu Shagari. Brigadier Idiagbon said that “members of some banned political parties have been holding secret meetings in different parts of the country to seek ways of neutralizing or obstructing the goals of this administration.”
A Princeton professor’s lesson on the Eiffel Tower is one of a growing number of efforts in leading colleges and universities to begin teaching technology to liberal arts students. Knowledge of the methods, values and thought processes of engineering and applied science is necessary to round out a liberal arts education, educators say.
Doctors who lose their license in one state often move to another state and continue to receive Federal payments for treatment of elderly and poor people under Medicare and Medicaid, Federal investigators said. They found that the government had halted such payments to “relatively few” doctors whose licenses were withdrawn.
North Carolina’s Senate campaign has heated up this spring to a pitch that one would not expect until election eve in the fall. In the November contest between Senator Jesse Helms, a Republican, and Governor James B. Hunt Jr., a Democrat, a total of $10 million has already been raised, mostly from outside the state, and much has been spent on heavy television advertising.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s standing among Democrats has made steady gains, and a solid majority of the public believes that his Presidential candidacy has enhanced the possibility of blacks being elected to high office, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll.
The U.S. Navy battleship USS Iowa (BB-61), called “the greatest ship ever launched” by the United States when it was built in the 1940s and a veteran of two wars, rejoined the Navy, saluting Vice President George Bush with its 21 guns. “As we send the Iowa off to defend the interests of freedom, we are also sending a message that this country has learned the lessons of history,” Bush told about 15,000 persons assembled in Pascagoula, Mississippi, for the recommissioning of the World War II battleship. The Iowa returns to sea Monday for training exercises in the Caribbean. The return of the Iowa, Bush said, is part of a program to rebuild the Navy’s strength.
The Manville Corp. filed two lawsuits against the federal government in U.S. District Court in Denver to recover settlements to two former shipyard workers. The suits contend that the Navy failed to protect workers from asbestos dust until 1978. Both men contended that they had contracted asbestos-related diseases. Manville said it paid $67,500 to Philsun Owen, who worked at the Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, yard and the Long Beach, California, yard and $30,000 to Hessuph W. Sexton, who worked in Long Beach.
Alcoholics have a suicide rate six to 15 times greater than the general population, while alcohol ranks second only to Alzheimer’s disease as a cause of mental deterioration in adults, according to a study by the Department of Health and Human Services. Although one-third of American adults do not drink, the other two-thirds consume enough alcohol for every person in the country over the age of 14 to annually have 591 cans of beer, 115 bottles of wine or 35 fifths of whiskey, the study said. Excess drinking has been linked to heart damage and cancers of the mouth, tongue, pharynx and esophagus, the report said.
Senator John H. Chafee (R-Rhode Island) said he will propose a moratorium on striped bass fishing in all Atlantic coastal waters to protect the prize sport fish from pollution and overfishing. Chafee said he based his proposal on a study by the Commerce and Interior departments documenting a continuing decline in striped bass populations, spawning and catches. The study, to be issued Monday, cited surveys estimating that 16.7 million striped bass were landed by recreational fishermen in 1965, declining to 14.2 million in 1970, and to 554,000 in 1980.
A chain of Minnesota health clubs that allow only “born-again Christians” to hold management positions was found guilty of religious discrimination in the way it hires, fires and promotes employees. The complaints of 10 former employees and customers or unsuccessful job applicants who filed charges with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights against Sports and Health Clubs Inc. were upheld. The complainants will be paid damages, with the amounts to be determined at a future hearing.
A Texas jury deliberated less than two hours before sentencing a chemical salesman to death by injection for murdering four men in a rural airplane hangar last October. Lester Leroy Bower Jr., 36, of Arlington, Texas, was convicted Friday by the jury in Sherman, which heard closing statements Saturday morning and deliberated one hour and 10 minutes before recommending death. State District Judge R. C. Vaughan pronounced four separate death sentences, one for each of the victims.
Ottis Elwood Toole, who is believed to be involved in 100 slayings around the nation with convicted Texas killer Henry Lee Lucas, was convicted in Jacksonville, Florida, of the arson murder of George Nicholas Sonneberg, 64, who died in a 1982 boarding house fire. Toole, already serving a 20-year sentence for arson in another case, faces Florida’s electric chair or life in prison at a sentencing hearing set for May 11.
A judge issued a temporary restraining order today blocking Sam Caldwell, the State Labor Commissioner, from dismissing an employee whose allegations led to Caldwell’s conviction of conspiracy to defraud the state. The restraining order was sought at the behest of Governor Joe Frank Harris, who said in a statement: “This action became necessary as a result of the unjustifiable announcement by Mr. Caldwell that he planned to terminate a department employee who testified against him.” DeKalb County Judge Clarence Peeler issued the 30-day order and set a May 21 hearing date on a permanent restraining order, said Barbara Morgan, the Governor’s press secretary.
Crews in North Dakota found the bodies of two people yesterday who died in a blizzard that dumped up to 25 inches of snow, while Oklahoma residents began rebuilding after tornadoes killed 10 people and turned most of the town of Morris into rubble. The same blizzard also paralyzed northeastern Wyoming for three days and claimed three lives in Wyoming, the officials said. Further east, thunderstorms struck Tennessee, leaving one man dead and another critically injured after they were hit by lightning. There was no water, electricity or phone service for the 1,300 residents of Morris. Two-thirds of the town was flattened when tornadoes swept across Oklahoma Thursday and Friday, killing 10 people and injuring 100. Thirteen people had been reported missing earlier, but by late yesterday all those reported missing had been found, said Jim Boehm, communication supervisor for the North Dakota state radio.
“La Tragedie de Carmen” closes at Beaumont Theater NYC after 187 performances.
NBC accidentally leaves the field microphone open while broadcasting a 5–3 Atlanta Braves victory. Astro catcher Harry Spilman argues with home plate umpire Jerry Crawford. Manager Bob Lillis and Coach Denis Menke soon get into the act and profanities fly in every direction. NBC switchboards are flooded with complaints.
At Comiskey, Boston does all their scoring in the last 3 innings winning on an error in the 9th, 8–7. Jose Cruz has a grand slam for Chicago, while Jim Rice and Tony Armas homer for Boston. Armas’s clout is a 500-foot blast into the centerfield bleachers.
Gary Pettis belts a grand slam and Geoff Zahn goes the distance as the California Angels belt the Seattle Mariners, 10–1.
Born:
Rómulo Sánchez, Venezuelan MLB pitcher (Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Yankees), in Carora, Venezuela.
Pedro López, Dominican MLB shortstop and second baseman (Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds), in Moca, Dominican Republic.
Died:
Glen H. Taylor, 80, American senator, D-Idaho (1945–1951).
History Diaries 