Poland signed an economic pact with the Soviet Union that appears to offer renewed Soviet assistance to the faltering Polish economy. The 15-year accord was signed by the Polish leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, and Konstantin U. Chernenko, the Soviet leader. No details were made public, but the indications were that the pact would bind Poland more tightly to the Soviet economic bloc.
Efforts to send abroad Yelena G. Bonner, the wife of Dr. Andrei D. Sakharov, were “foiled,” the official Soviet press agency said by “timely measures” taken by Soviet authorities. The agency, Tass, said the operation had been planned in part by American diplomats to give refuge to the wife of the dissident physicist who has been exiled from Moscow. Tass’s announcement raised concern among diplomats that Mrs. Bonner had been detained. Mrs. Bonner has suffered several heart attacks in the last two years. In January her husband addressed an appeal to the European security conference in Stockholm asking “those who want to help me to concentrate all their efforts” on getting her out of the Soviet Union for medical treatment. Tass said an “official representation” had been made to the United States Embassy in Moscow “listing the facts of direct involvement by staffers of the embassy in this provocation and demanding an end to such inadmissible actions.”
West German metalworkers voted today to approve a strike in their battle to win a 35-hour workweek. Union leaders said a strike could begin late next week. About 240,000 metalworkers in the 2.6-million-member union voted. More balloting will take place next week, but industry and labor leaders have described today’s vote as decisive. Ernst Eisenmann, the regional union leader in North Württemberg-North Baden, announced that preliminary results showed 80.05 percent of the workers voted to strike.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher suffered a sharp political reversal Thursday on the fifth anniversary of her move to 10 Downing Street. The Conservative party was turned out of office in several important cities and barely managed to hold onto two seats in the House of Commons that it has always won by hefty margins. Results of local elections in England, Scotland and Wales, excluding London and a few other areas, which were declared this morning, showed that the Tories had lost control of the councils in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Southampton, Exeter and elsewhere. The loss of Birmingham, England’s second largest city, where the conservative had cut taxes sharply and proclaimed themselves a “model administration,” was a especially bitter blow. In Liverpool, a city with unemployment problems and other ills, militant laborites gained the upper hand on the council and promised to take illegal actions to protest laws passed by the Government.
A three-judge court today canceled the libel convictions of the publisher and editor of Greece’s top-selling daily newspaper, Ethnos, in a case involving a dispute with the author of a book, a court spokesman reported. George Bobolas, publisher of Ethnos, and the paper’s editor, Alexander Filipopoulos, were convicted in March of libeling a Cypriot-born journalist, Paul Anastasiades. They were given four- month prison sentences, which they appealed. An article in Ethnos called Mr. Anastasiades’s book “Take the Nation in Your Hands” a “pseudo book.” The spokesman said the court ruled that the article was “a reaction to the work more than a reference to the author’s person.”
Mr. Anastasiades’s book, published last year, said Ethnos was established with the help of the K.G.B., the Soviet state security agency, to spread false information. Ethnos has taken pro- Soviet stands on events in Poland, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Last December Mr. Anastasiades was convicted of libel and given a two-year jail term because of the allegations in his book. He appealed and was freed pending retrial on May 18. Mr. Anastasiades, writing under the name Paul Anastasi, also writes for the Daily Telegraph of London and is a part-time correspondent for The New York Times.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said today that he had sent an appeal to President Hafez al- Assad of Syria urging him to release three Israeli diplomats. Mr. Jackson sent a telegram to the Syrian President Thursday from San Antonio, where he is campaigning for the Democratic nomination for President. The three Israelis were captured by Syrian troops in Lebanon on Tuesday. Syria has said they were on a “spying mission,” but Israel says they strayed into Syrian-controlled territory while on an outing.
Mr. Jackson’s telegram to Mr. Assad said: “I would again urgently appeal to you for the prompt release of these persons in view of the fact that such an action may have a further positive bearing on the reduction of tensions in that region. Since you demonstrated such a sense of moral integrity with regard to the release of Lieutenant Goodman, I have confidence that you will also consider positively the matter of the release of these Israeli captives to be in the interest of peace.” Mr. Jackson traveled to Syria in December to appeal for the release of Lieutenant Robert O. Goodman Jr. of the United States Navy, who was captured when Syria shot down his plane in Lebanon. The lieutenant was later released.
North Korea called for secret talks with the United States during President Reagan’s visit to Peking, South Korean officials said. North Korea reportedly suggested using China as an intermediary to convey the proposal. American officials said the proposal was rejected. The South Koreans said North Korea apparently hoped that such talks could prepare for a possible conference on reunification that would include the United States. American officials reiterated the basic United States position on such proposals that the two Koreas should first negotiate between themselves on reunifying the peninsula, which was divided nearly four decades ago. Word of the latest North Korean suggestion was said to have been given to South Korean officials by Secretary of State George P. Shultz when he came to Seoul earlier this week to provide details of the Reagan trip to China.
Pope John Paul II preached a sermon of reconciliation today in this city in which the Government crushed a student uprising four years ago. John Paul, addressing a silently attentive audience of about 50,000 at a mass in the city stadium, said: “I am keenly aware of the deep wounds that pain your hearts and souls from personal experiences and from recent tragedies, which are difficult to overcome from a merely human point of view, especially for those of you from Kwangju.” Speaking of “the grace of reconciliation,” he added: “This part of Christ’s saving message is particularly relevant for those who are haunted by the memory of the unfortunate events of this place. By accepting the consequences of our baptismal commitment, we become instruments of reconciliation and peace in the midst of dissension and hatred. In this way, as effective signs of Christ’s healing power working in us, we ease the pain of injured hearts that are filled with anxiety and bitterness.” Kwangju, a city of 800,000, was the scene of a weeklong anti-Government uprising in 1980. At least 189 people were killed as troops put down the rebellion.
The election of Jose Napoleon Duarte, the leader of El Salvador’s Christian Democrats, in the runoff presidential election Sunday is expected by the Reagan Administration, State Department officials said. Plans based on that assumption are being made to invite Mr. Duarte to Washington later this month, the officials said, as part of a renewed effort to obtain additional funds for El Salvador from Congress.
The Itaipu Dam begins generating electricity on the border between Paraguay and Brazil. It is the world’s second largest generator of electricity (considered one of the seven engineering wonders of the modern world).
Former President Isabel Martinez de Perón, who has spent the last three years in exile in Spain, will return home to lead the opposition Perónist party, her spokesman says. Mrs. Perón, the widow of President Juan Domingo Perón, plans to return May 20, the spokesman, Juan Labake, said Thursday. There was no comment from Mrs. Perón in Madrid. Diplomats said today that the new civilian Government encouraged Mrs. Perón to return because it needs the opposition party’s consent to win passage of austerity measures. Mrs. Perón assumed the presidency in 1974 when her husband died. She was overthrown in a military coup in 1976 and was imprisoned for five years before the armed forces allowed her to leave for exile in Spain in 1981.
The Democrats’ national chief announced his intention to form a “party unity task force” to resolve disputes among the three Democratic Presidential candidates. The proposal by Charles T. Manatt, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was made in response to the disclosure that Walter F. Mondale and the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Robert S. Strauss, a former Democratic Party chairman, met privately in Dallas Wednesday night to discuss what Mr. Jackson called “a conflict resolution apparatus,” with Mr. Strauss as mediator, to heal the divisions created by the battle for the nomination. Mr. Manatt’s prompt response, according to an aide, was meant to be a signal that he, not Mr. Strauss, his rival for the chairmanship, should be the mediator.
The Esmark conglomerate agreed to a $2.4 billion management takeover by a major New York investment firm after months of behind-the- scenes talks. In the merger with Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Company, Donald P. Kelly, Esmark’s chairman and chief executive, would remain in command.
The cutbacks in the defense budget recently proposed by President Reagan did not go far enough, Congressional experts on military matters generally said. They predicted Congress would make additional cuts as it dealt with reducing the budget deficit in the months ahead. As part of those cuts, many lawmakers now believe Congress could delay, or even kill outright, the costly MX missile. One key supporter of the missile said it could lose by as many as 30 votes when it comes to a vote on the House floor later this month. “I can see a strong coalition to reduce defense,” said Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, a senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee who is a former Secretary of the Navy. “There is a mood here, unfortunately, for further reductions.” “It’s not enough,” said Representative Les Aspin, a Wisconsin Democrat who sits on the Armed Services Committee. “Congress will cut more than that.”
Accordingly, a major struggle could be shaping up between Capitol Hill and the White House over military spending. In a letter this week to Howard H. Baker Jr., the Senate majority leader, Mr. Reagan seemed to threaten a veto if further reductions were made. “I strongly believe,” the President wrote, “that any further reductions would be counter to our national security interests and could not be accepted.” But Mr. Aspin dismissed the veto threat as hollow. “What’s he going to do, veto the bill because it’s too low?” Mr. Aspin asked. “Congress has the President over a barrel on defense spending.”
On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger presented the Reagan Administration’s revised military plan to the Senate Armed Services Committee. It would provide for an appropriation of $291.1 billion in the fiscal year 1985, $13.9 billion below Mr. Reagan’s original budget request. Put another way, the new budget would grow 7.8 percent above inflation, as opposed to Mr. Reagan’s original projection of 13 percent. Most of these reductions would come by stretching out procurement schedules for conventional weapon systems. No entire weapon system would be deleted.
President Reagan spends the day catching up on homework.
The President and First Lady watch the movie “Moscow on the Hudson.”
Boston’s leading benefactor is now An Wang, a computer manufacturer whose financial aid to the city’s institutions began with a $4 million pledge for save the city’s main performing arts center from closing. His gift was only one that he has made in recent months to help Boston’s colleges, hospitals and depressed neighborhoods as as well as the arts. He also plans to build a factory for his company in Boston’s Chinatown, and to help revitalize the old industrial city of Lowell, near Boston, where Wang Laboratories has headquarters.
A Federal jury has awarded $660,000 to a Vietnamese orphan who was injured when an airplane carrying nearly 150 children crashed after taking off from Saigon in a 1975 airlift, her attorney said today. The award was the first to be given to one of the infants who was sent to live in Europe in April 1975 as Communist troops began to make their final assault on Saigon, said Charles Work, the girl’s attorney. Two years ago, the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation settled with 52 of the children who now live in the United States, but no comprehensive settlement has been reached with any of the children who live in Europe or Canada. The girl’s name has not been released for privacy reasons.
The 110th Kentucky Derby today is almost an anticlimax after a week of local revelry and civic pride. Derby Week is a nonstop festival, but still closer to the heartland than to Hollywood, more an outpouring of American enthusiasm than a slick entertainment spectacle.
An inquiry into 38 infant deaths nationwide believed to be linked with an intravenous vitamin E solution continued at a House subcommittee hearing. A physician from Spokane, Wash., said today that he warned the distributor of an intravenous vitamin E solution last January that the drug was thought to have contributed to the deaths of four babies in his city. But a hospital director from another city said that when he inquired about the vitamin two months later the company said there had been no reports of problems. Their statements were made to a House subcommittee that is investigating the conduct of the Food and Drug Administration regarding the drug that the agency has linked to the deaths of 38 babies.
After injections of the drug, five babies in a hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee became ill in March and April and died. The hospital director testified he called the company that distributed the drug, O’Neal, Jones & Feldman, of Maryland Heights, Missouri, on March 19 and was not told of the Spokane warning. The drug agency issued a statement saying that, based on reports from hospital administrators, a total of 38 such infant deaths had been reported among premature babies treated with the drug, E-Ferol Aqueous Solution, including 10 in San Antonio, Texas.
A prison escapee who spent his boyhood in Columbus, Georgia was indicted there today for three of seven “stocking strangler” murders of elderly women that terrorized the city for eight months in 1977 and 1978. Carlton Gary, 33 years old, whom a police captain called “an extremely brilliant young man,” was held without bond on nine counts of murder, rape and burglary, and on a separate count of burglary. District Attorney William Smith of Muscogee County said he would seek the death penalty. Mr. Gary was charged with the murders of Florence G. Scheible, 89 years old, Martha B. Thurmond, 69, and Kathleen K. Woodruff, 74.
Ernest Holbrook, imprisoned more than two years for a murder he said he did not commit, hugged and kissed his two sisters and then walked away today from the Lima State Correctional Institute. “They owe me,” said Mr. Holbrook, who learned at 12:30 PM today that he would be freed. “I lost everything I had. I just thank God its over. It’s been hell.” Mr. Holbrook said he was “a little” bitter, believed he was owed an apology and planned to seek monetary compensation from the state. The Wayne County prosecutor, Keith Shearer, said he had asked that the charges be dropped because of new evidence linking another man to the murder of Tina Marie Harmon, 12 years old.
250,000 more people found jobs last month while the average factory workweek rose to its highest level in nearly 20 years, the Labor Department reported, attributing this to an expanding economy.
Choate Rosemary Hall School expelled 14 students following the arrest of one of the students on charges of trying to smuggle $300,000 worth of cocaine into the country, officials of the exclusive private school in Wallingford, Connecticut, said.
A Philadelphia jury today convicted Anthony Joyner, 22 years old, of raping and murdering six elderly women who lived at the nation’s oldest nursing home. Mr. Joyner, a former kitchen worker at the home, could face the death penalty. The jury is to decide his fate Saturday. The women were slain over a period of six months last year.
Florida residents of Dade County hauled in enough old paint, arsenic and automobile oil to poison the drinking water of a sizable city in just three days of a toxic waste roundup, officials said today. The State Department of Environmental Regulation hailed the collection Thursday as “very productive” after about 70 people brought in 5,000 pounds of potential pollutants. The project is aimed at keeping hazardous wastes out of the Biscayne Aquifer, the source of drinking water for South Florida.
At Minnesota, Oakland’s Dave Kingman hits a pop up that collides with the Metrodome, 180 feet up, and stays there. The ball is dislodged tomorrow. Frank Viola pitches 7⅔ scoreless innings in the Twins 3–1 win.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1165.31 (-16.22).
Born:
Montell Owens, NFL fullback (Pro Bowl 2010, 2011; Jacksonville Jaguars, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears), in Wilmington, Delaware.
Kevin Slowey, MLB pitcher (Minnesota Twins, Miami Marlins), in Conroe, Texas.
Sam LeCure, MLB pitcher (Cincinnati Reds), in Jefferson City, Missouri.
Sarah Meier, Swiss figure skater (Olympics, 2002, 2006, 2010), in Bülach, Switzerland.
Died:
Diana Dors [Fluck], 52, British actress (“The Unholy Wife”, “Berserk!”, “Steaming”) and singer, of cancer.
Larry Stock, 87, American singer-songwriter (“Blueberry Hill”; “You’re Nobody till Somebody Loves You”).
History Diaries 