The Pope was welcomed to the United States by President Reagan in Fairbanks, Alaska. Mr. Reagan wished John Paul II well on his forthcoming trip to South Korea, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. President Reagan joined with 5,000 Alaskans today to greet Pope John Paul II and hear him appeal for “an openness of heart, a readiness to accept differences and an ability to listen to each other’s viewpoint without prejudice.” Under rainy gray skies at an outdoor ceremony at Fairbanks International Airport, Mr. Reagan welcomed the Pope to the United States and wished him well on his trip to South Korea, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Thailand. “In a violent world, Your Holiness, you have been a minister of peace and love,” said Mr. Reagan, who arrived in this central Alaska city Tuesday morning after his trip to China and stayed to meet with John Paul.
After their meeting, the President and the Pope greeted handicapped children at the airport terminal and met privately for just under half an hour. The White House said they discussed their trips to Asia, as well as arms control, East-West relations and unspecified regional problems. A White House aide said the regional issues included Poland, the Middle East and Central America.
Syria confirmed seizing three Israelis in Lebanon and said they had been taken to Syria. Israel demanded their release. Damascus said the Israelis were saboteurs trying to infiltrate Syrian-controlled territory, but an Israeli Government spokesman said they were diplomats who had strayed into the Syrian area while on a sightseeing tour.
Ireland’s main democratic nationalist parties called for Irish reunification as the best way to end 15 years of bloody sectarian and political violence in British-ruled Northern Ireland. The proposal was made by the New Ireland Forum, a year-old panel set up by the Dublin government and consisting of prominent members of the three main political parties in the Irish Republic and the main nationalist party in Northern Ireland. Offering guarantees for the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland, the panel made two alternative proposals — confederation between North and South or joint sovereignty over Ulster by London and Dublin.
A British helicopter was forced to ditch in the North Sea, and all 47 people aboard were rescued unhurt, the Defense Ministry said in London. The British Airways Chinook copter was ferrying workers home from an oil rig when the pilot encountered difficulty and put the aircraft down, a spokesman said. Five helicopters and six ships arrived quickly at the site, about 100 miles east of the Shetland Islands. The helicopter, with a crew of 3 and 44 passengers, remained afloat 110 miles northeast of Sumburgh Head in the Shetland Islands, according to Tim Junor, a British Petroleum spokesman. Chinook helicopters have built-in flotation devices.
A dysentery epidemic sweeping the eastern Indian state of West Bengal has killed nearly 1,000 people, mostly young children, Indian officials said today. Health Minister B. Shankaranand told Parliament that at least 20,780 people had been reported sick from dysentery since the epidemic began March 26. Mr. Shankaranand placed the death toll at 911, but state officials in Calcutta said at least 970 people have died. Scientists say that the disease has been set off by contaminated drinking water and identified the killer bacteria as “shigella dysenteria type one,” also known as shigas bacillus. It causes diarrhea with blood and mucus in the feces, leads to dehydration and, if not checked, death.
Reports from the region say the state government, controlled by a Marxist regime, had not taken adequate measures to halt the epidemic and had ignored warnings by scientists. When the epidemic began, according to one report, officials found that many village clinics and district hospitals did not have the basic material to fight the disease. There were no oral rehydration packets, antibiotics, halogen tablets for purifying water or even bleaching powder, the reports said. The Indian Express newspaper said that in the villages and in Calcutta 95 percent of the victims were babies.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau appealed strongly to the United States to lead the industrial countries in resisting protectionism and for settling international economic disputes. The Canadian Prime Minister is resigning next month.
Nicaraguan authorities said a Nicaraguan fishing boat hit a rebel mine in the port of Corinto and sank, injuring four sailors, the first such incident since U.S.-backed insurgents reportedly halted the mining operation. There was no indication whether the mine was from the early mine-laying or part of a new operation. The Managua government also said rebel speedboats attacked Corinto and Potosi, both Pacific ports, but were driven off without causing damage.
The House Appropriations Committee delayed action on President Reagan’s request for more military aid for El Salvador at least until after the Salvadoran presidential election Sunday. The committee also refused to go along with a request to endorse continued aid at the current level for 30 days. Democrats said it is not needed because Reagan has funneled $32 million in Pentagon money to the Salvadoran army. The Senate had approved $61.7 million for El Salvador, but the House committee deleted the figure, and approved the bill’s other items-funds for African food aid, child nutrition and summer youth employment.
A far-right Salvadoran candidate for vice-president said that Senator Jessie Helms had demanded the resignation of the American Ambassador to El Salvador, accusing the diplomat of manipulating the Salvadoran elections. The vice-presidential candidate is Hugo Barrera, who is running on the ticket headed by Roberto d’Aubisson.
The CIA directed two air strikes against Nicaragua in February with the help of specially trained Latin Americans, not Nicaraguan rebels as first reported, United States officials said. Four Nicaraguans were killed in the attacks against a radio transmitter and a military camp.
Mexico will relocate Guatemalans from camps along its southern border to camps farther inside the country. The Government’s decision to move the 46,000 refugees follows an attack on a refugee camp by unidentified gunmen who were said to have crossed into Mexico.
In a reversal of policy, Colombian President Belisario Betancur said he will approve extradition to the United States of all Colombian drug traffickers sought by Washington. Betancur was reacting to the murder, apparently by drug traffickers, of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who had launched a campaign against drug dealers and had received death threats. Betancur also ordered military courts to try all drug cases, with no bail allowed.
General Joao Figueiredo, the President of Brazil, today suspended a 60-day limited state of emergency that had been imposed to halt demonstrations for direct presidential elections. The decree today said there were “no existing reasons to justify the emergency measures,” which applied to the Brasilia area. Last Thursday the Brazilian Congress rejected a constitutional amendment to reinstate direct presidential elections.
Development aid cuts, caused partly by U.S. pressure, will bring economic chaos and perhaps collapse in West Africa’s huge drought-struck Sahel region, the British charity Oxfam said. Rains have been almost negligible for the past two years in many parts of the region, as they were in 1967-73 when thousands died, said the report by Nigel Twose, a former Oxfam field director in Upper Volta. He blamed cuts in funds for the International Development Assn. and the International Fund for Agricultural Development for exacerbating the problem. Countries involved include Cape Verde, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Niger and Chad.
Sudan’s President Jaafar Numeiri replaced nearly a third of his Cabinet, including the foreign and interior ministers. The shakeup came three days after he imposed a state of emergency in Sudan, and appeared to be aimed at curbing inefficiency, corruption and labor unrest challenging his pro-Western regime. Sudan is beset by a secessionist movement in the south.
Jesse Jackson’s refusal to repudiate the support of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who threatened a reporter for disclosing Mr. Jackson’s use of anti-Semitic language, was condemned by Walter F. Mondale and Senator Gary Hart in a debate in Grapevine, Texas. But, in what was otherwise the mildest of the eight debates this year, Mr. Jackson refused to disown the Black Muslim leader.
President Reagan meets with the Pope, who is at a refueling stop in the middle of his trip to South Korea. White House political strategists then made plans for the meeting as a perfect end for a trip that had allowed Mr. Reagan to project himself as a statesman. The White House is also seeking to shore up the President’s political strength among Roman Catholic voters. Immediately after their meeting, the Pope walked Mr. Reagan to Air Force One for his flight to Washington, which took off at 11:23 AM. The Pope toured the crowds in an open car and offered a liturgy at a separate platform. He also delivered a homily praising the work of missionaries as “true heroes of the faith.”
The Air Force general who was killed in a plane crash last week at Nellis Air Force Range in Nevada was flying a Soviet MIG-23 jet aircraft that has been used in tests against American radar-evading technology, according to Air Force informants. The Nellis range is a vast section of wasteland that also encompasses the Government’s nuclear testing field and is the headquarters for several secret programs.
A pharmacist was credited with having alerted the Food and Drug Administration last November that an injectable Vitamin E solution tentatively linked since then to the deaths of 38 infants was being marketed without the Government’s approval. The pharmacist is Fred Figa, the head of the pharmacological investigative unit at Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia.
Legal gambling is increasing across the conservative Middle West and in other regions. The amount bet on lotteries, horse racing, bingo and other approved activities is estimated at $24 billion a year. State lotteries, which did not exist two decades ago, now account for nearly a quarter of the total.
The deficit reduction plan proposed by President Reagan was apparently gaining support in the Senate. Voting 65 to 33, the Senators defeated a proposed one-year freeze on nearly all military and domestic spending, possibly opening the way for approval of Mr. Reagan’s plan.
A proposed federal assault on acid rain was effectively killed by a House subcommittee in a 10-9 vote that the panel’s chairman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), said sounded “a likely death knell” for stronger air pollution controls. The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and the environment struck the acid rain proposal from a measure that would extend the Clean Air Act. Republican members of the panel were joined by Midwestern Democrats to form the majority against the plan. The acid rain bill would have required reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions of 10 million tons a year, with the cleanup of the most heavily polluting industrial plants. financed by a nationwide tax on electricity.
An Illinois firm has agreed to pay $10 million in fines, the second-largest environmental penalty in U.S. history, to settle allegations of mismanagement at a waste disposal site in Ohio. As a result of the agreement, Waste Management Inc. will be allowed to continue operating the Ohio Liquid Disposal facility at Vickery. The firm admitted no wrongdoing in the consent decree between Waste Management and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. However, Waste Management did agree to pay the Ohio EPA $800,000 a year for the next 10 years, in addition to other fines.
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger returned an interracial child-custody case to Florida courts sooner than necessary, but refused to prohibit Texas courts from acting on the matter. Last week, the Supreme Court overturned a custody ruling that had given Anthony J. Sidoti of Bryan, Texas, custody of his daughter because his former wife, Linda Sidoti Palmore of Seffner, Florida, had married a black man. The court ruled that racial discrimination cannot be taken into account in child custody matters. However, Sidoti is trying to persuade Texas courts to keep his daughter with him. Burger sent the case back to the Florida courts immediately rather than on May 20, the date that the April 25 high court ruling would normally take effect. Further court action is expected in both states.
Claus von Bülow, who last week won a new trial for allegedly trying to kill his wife, suffered a fainting spell in his New York apartment and was hospitalized in stable condition, a hospital administrator said. “He’s really doing fine,” administrator JoAnn Tancer said. Von Bulow had been sentenced to 30 years in prison and was free on $1 million bond when the Rhode Island Supreme Court granted him a new trial on charges that he tried to murder his wife, Martha.
Dennis J. Roberts II, the State Attorney General, asked the Rhode Island Supreme Court today to reconsider its decision of April 27 granting Claus von Bülow a new trial on charges of attempted murder. Mr. Roberts said in a statement he had asked the Justices to hear additional arguments on the issue of laboratory tests conducted by the state police on the contents of a bag used as evidence in the case. Mr. von Bülow was convicted of twice trying to murder his wife, Martha, with insulin injections. The Supreme Court ruled that the judge who presided over Mr. von Bülow’s trial erred by allowing the admission of tests performed on drugs and a needle found in the bag. The justices said the evidence should have been excluded because the tests were performed without a search warrant.
Authorities in West Palm Beach, Florida, said 42 persons — including three former police detectives and a former reporter for the Miami Herald — were charged with operating the largest cocaine smuggling ring ever uncovered in the United States. Between June, 1982, and November, 1983, the alleged smugglers imported nearly eight tons of cocaine with a street sale value of $2.2 billion, said Commissioner Robert Dempsey of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Dempsey said agents had arrested 20 persons and were seeking the others, although many were believed hiding outside the United States.
Laboratory tests that may reveal the cause of David A. Kennedy’s death will be turned over Thursday to a judge who will rule whether they will be made public, officials said today. Judge R. William Rutter of Palm Beach County Circuit Court, who sealed all records in the Kennedy investigation last Friday, has scheduled a hearing for 4 P.M. Thursday to determine whether the news blackout should be lifted. Initial laboratory tests showed “significant amounts” of cocaine and the painkiller Demerol in the body of Mr. Kennedy.
Negotiators for the Hilton hotels have reached a tentative agreement with the musicians’ union, one of four unions involved in a month-long strike against this resort’s hotels, officials said today. The Hilton organization operates only two of the 32 hotels struck by 17,000 hotel-casino workers, but it has 10 percent of hotel rooms here. “It appears that we have an agreement in concept, subject to working out the language and again subject to agreement being reached with the other unions and the Hiltons,” said Mark Tully Nassagli, president of the Musicians’ Local 369.
Nearly half of all Americans in mid-1982 lived in the 36 metropolitan areas with populations of 1 million or more, the Census Bureau reported, and Houston was the fastest growing community in the country. The southerly flood of persons seeking jobs and sunshine moved Houston into the No. 8 position formerly held by Washington among the 50 largest metropolitan areas — of which 36 had populations of 1 million or more. Overall, 111 million people, or 48% of all Americans, lived in these million-plus population centers by July 1, 1982, according to a bureau study.
The U.S. performs underground nuclear test “Orkney” at the Nevada Test Site, with an estimated 250-ton yield.
Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Sunday in the Park with George”, a fictionalized version of painter Georges Seurat’s relationship with his grandson, starring Mandy Patinkin, opens at Booth Theater, NYC; runs for 604 performances, wins a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
New York Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly’s single breaks up Chicago White Sox pitcher Lamarr Hoyt’s perfect game bid, at Comiskey Park. Hoyt faces 27 batters in a 3–0 one-hitter against the Yankees. New York’s only hit is Mattingly’s opposite-field blooper in the 7th inning, which is followed by a double play.
Cleveland’s Andre Thornton walks 6 times in an Indians win at Baltimore, 9–7, in 16 innings. Thornton joins Jimmie Foxx (6/16/1938) and Walt Wilmot (8/22/1891) as the only players to receive this many passes in a game, though they did it in regulation.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1186.56 (+3.56).
Born:
Thabo Sefolosha, Swiss NBA shooting guard, small forward, and power forward (Chicago Bulls, Oklahoma City Thunder, Atlanta Hawks, Utah Jazz, Houston Rockets), in Vevey, Switzerland.
Charlie Johnson, NFL tackle and guard (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 41-Colts, 2006; Indianapolis Colts, Minnesota Vikings), in Sherman, Texas.
Died:
Jack Barry, 66, American game show emcee (Joker’s Wild), dies of cardiac arrest.
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