Sporadic mortar and grenade fire persisted in and around Beirut today. One person was killed, raising the weekend death toll to 19. The government radio quoted officials close to Prime Minister Rashid Karami as having said that he believed the continual fighting was a tactic to block the work of his new cabinet. The police said 18 people were killed and 70 wounded Saturday in the worst hostilities in a week. The fighting subsided at dawn today, but resumed around noon when mortar shells hit the Christian suburb of Ain al Rummaneh, killing one person and wounding two, the police said.
The bodies of two Arab terrorists who hijacked an Israeli bus last month have been exhumed for second autopsies, a well- placed Defense Ministry official said today. The new autopsies were ordered by an internal commission appointed by Defense Minister Moshe Arens to investigate the circumstances surrounding their deaths, the official said. The commission was established after it became known that Israeli photographers had taken pictures of the two hijackers as they were being led away from the bus after an assault by Israeli troops. Two other hijackers were killed during the attack.
Libya said its forces had captured and killed the leader of the attack last week on the barracks of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi. Libya announced that its forces tracked down and killed a guerrilla leader whose band was largely wiped out after it reportedly tried to assassinate Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi last week. The man was identified as Wajdi Shwedi, nationality not given. Libya says the guerrillas belonged to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and were trained by the United States. It has not confirmed an attack aimed at Kadafi but has said only that the guerrillas occupied a building and took hostages.
A missile from a warplane hit and slightly damaged a Kuwaiti oil tanker, the latest shipping casualty of the Iran-Iraq war, its owners reported. Kuwait’s oil tanker company said the plane was not identified, but shipping sources throughout the Persian Gulf said the missile was thought to have been fired by an Iraqi jet. The tanker, carrying about 84,000 tons of Kuwaiti fuel oil to Britain, was struck outside the war zone, the firm said. It was the third tanker hit by a missile in the gulf in 20 days, with Iraq suspected in each case.
Key Solidarity union figures rejected the Polish Government’s latest efforts to persuade them to leave prison. Most of the 11 political prisoners, who include leaders of the banned union and intellectual dissidents, have been imprisoned for nearly two and a half years without a trial.
The Soviet Union appears unlikely to reverse its decision to boycott the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, United States and Soviet officials said today. Afghanistan announced that it was also withdrawing from the Games. Georgi A. Arbatov, director of the U.S.A. Institute and a member of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee, said the United States would have to make “rather serious changes” to improve overall relations with Moscow and dispel the Kremlin’s concerns over security at the Olympics. “We haven’t seen a more anti-Soviet Government in the history of our relations,” Mr. Arbatov said on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”
Sikh terrorists attacked an Indian National Guard unit, killing one soldier and wounding five others as rioting, sparked by the assassination of a prominent Hindu newspaper editor, spilled beyond the borders of the troubled Indian state of Punjab. Sikh extremists claimed responsibility for the fatal attack on Ramesh Chander, killed in an ambush. Authorities ordered round-the-clock curfews in two Punjabi cities and issued an order to shoot rioters on sight in a third city as the fighting spread to Haryana state.
Tamil separatists who kidnapped an American couple reported them still safe today but reiterated that the two would be killed on Monday unless the kidnappers’ demands were met. The Security Minister of Sri Lanka, Alith Athulathmudali, said at a news conference that the army, navy and air force had intensified the search for Stanley and Mary Allen of Ohio, who were abducted from their home in the northern city of Jaffna on Friday. The kidnappers have said that unless a $2 million ransom was paid and 20 prisoners were released, the couple would be killed. President J. R. Jayewardene said on Saturday that his nation would not pay any ransom. The Allens were employed by the Ruhlin Company of Columbus, Ohio, on a United States-sponsored water project in the Tamil heartland of Sri Lanka.
The key issue in Philippine elections today for the National Assembly appears to be the integrity of the election process. That issue is also the focus of attention at home and abroad. The closing days of the six- week campaign were dominated by opposition charges that the New Society Movement led by President Ferdinand E. Marcos planned to “rig” the election. Millions of Filipinos voted in parliamentary elections despite a call for a massive voter boycott by opponents of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Under sunny skies, the turnout was reported heavy among nearly 25 million Filipinos registered to vote. More than 300,000 soldiers and police were on the highest state of alert against what military officials said were reports of a plot by Communist rebels to disrupt the elections.
The Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibetan Buddhists, says he has given up the idea of returning permanently to Tibet, after 25 years of exile.
Covert action in Central America was defended by President Reagan’s national security adviser, Robert C. McFarlane, who said such action was increasingly necessary to give the United States an alternative between going to war and doing nothing when a friendly nation is under attack. He gave one of the strongest Administration justifications for actions carried out in Central America under the supervision of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The leader of El Salvador’s Roman Catholic church praised the National Election Council, which supervised the May 6 presidential runoff, and said its finding that centrist Jose Napoleon Duarte has won should be accepted as “the popular will.” Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas also called on Salvadorans to “put aside hard feelings and hatred and not let this descend into concealed or open threats against people or institutions.” Losing rightist candidate Roberto D’Aubuisson has denounced the election as fraudulent.
Latin America’s troubled economies, where most of the third world debt is concentrated, have produced a frenzy of concern almost overnight. The sense of urgency rose last week when the prime lending rate in the United States was raised to 12½ percent. Some Federal officials and bankers expect significant steps on the debt problem to take effect soon, in weeks or months.
Cuba’s senior officials in Grenada at the time of the United States invasion last fall have not been seen at official functions in months and are apparently in disgrace, Western diplomats in Havana say.
A disease that may be caused by a virus has killed 252 young Brazilian children in two weeks in this impoverished city and is spreading to nearby towns, local health officials said today. Maria Da Gloria Jesus de Hora, a hospital nurse, said the victims range in age from one month to six years. The disease causes high fever and diarrhea, and death is brought on by dehydration, she said. Local press reports said the health secretary for the state of Bahia has sent emergency medical teams to the area, which is 960 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro.
Sixteen Britons and the Portuguese wife of one of them arrived in Johannesburg after being freed by Angolan guerrillas who had held them captive for 80 days. The 17 and about 60 Portuguese and Filipino mine workers were abducted by rebels of the UNITA (Union for the Total Independence of Angola) movement in a raid in northern Angola. The Portuguese and Filipinos were released April 26, but the others were held until Britain complied with a demand by UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi that it send a representative to meet with him at a guerrilla camp. British officials denied that the meeting implied any recognition of the rebels, who are fighting a Marxist regime.
A three-day conference aimed at securing independence for Namibia (South-West Africa) has ended inconclusively in Lusaka, Zambia, with delegates representing all parties failing to agree on a final communique, the conference host, Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda, said. The meeting was attended by representatives of South Africa, the black nationalist guerrilla movement and Namibian political parties.
Insufficient military supplies are affecting the combat capacities of Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine forces. Many units would be prevented from participating in sustained combat, according to leaders of those units. The combat leaders said arms equipment and personnel of their units had steadily improved with the rise in military spending in the last three years, but many of them cited deficiencies in training and war reserves.
The President and First Lady depart Camp David for a Mother’s Day luncheon.
President Reagan visits an elderly home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor Catholic Order.
Thousands of anti-nuclear and anti-abortion activists observed Mother’s Day at rallies and marches to promote disarmament and decry what they called the “slaughter” of human fetuses. In Dallas, about 300 persons attended the burial of more than 1,000 fetuses that three Roman Catholic women said they had collected from a trash container behind an abortion clinic. The clinic now locks the trash bin and has it under police guard. About 6,000 persons in Chicago demonstrating against nuclear weapons were confronted by 20 jeering people, most of them immigrants from communist countries, who shouted, “Comrades go home” and “Why don’t you demonstrate in Afghanistan?”
New York lottery officials announced that four persons will share the state’s $22.1-million jackpot, the biggest ever offered in North America. But officials will not know the names of the winners until they claim their prizes today. Each winner will get $5,525,000 in 21 annual installments of $263,095. less a 20% tax deduction.
Secretary of the Treasury Donald T. Regan continued to bemoan high interest rates, saying Congress should share blame with the Federal Reserve Board, the target of Administration criticism last week. “High rates of interest are not good for sustained economic recovery.” Regan said at a news conference in Washington after a commencement address to graduates of the American University business school. Regan said the tight money policy of the nation’s central bank was just one factor causing commercial banks last week to boost the prime lending rate to 12½% from 12%.
The shipping of dead or dying U.S. beef cattle to South Korea from Missouri has strained trade relations and is undermining the $20-million export market between the two nations, agriculture officials said. A Department of Agriculture investigation of the high number of deaths among cattle in some Missouri shipments led to the discovery that some officials were certifying animals for export without proper veterinary procedures, the Kansas City Star reported.
About 670 workers struck Monsanto Co.’s Queeny Plant in St. Louis a day after a long bargaining session failed to produce a new contract. The strike was the first against the plant by the International Chemical Workers Union. since 1973. A three-year pact expired April 15. The strike was not expected to disrupt distribution of the plant’s chemical products, Monsanto spokeswoman Sarah Collins said.
The pro-gun lobby has given thousands of dollars in campaign help to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to Handgun Control Inc., which claims that recipient panel members got a “political payoff” for voting against a gun control bill. The Senate committee voted 16 to 0 last week for a bill that would relax current restrictions on owners and dealers of firearms. The changes are being sought by the National Rifle Assn. and other pro-gun organizations.
Union leaders accused the Governor and the District Attorney today of being on management’s side in the 42- day strike against two dozen Las Vegas casinos. Dennis Kist, president of the stagehands’ union, accused Governor Richard Bryan and District Attorney Bob Miller of leading the move in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to retain restrictions on picket lines. He referred to legal action Friday in which Federal District Judge Roger Foley in Las Vegas threw out an April 5 temporary restraining order under which a state court imposed restrictions on picketing. Six hours later Mr. Miller persuaded Judge Proctor Hug of the Appeals Court to stay Judge Foley’s decision until Monday. The announcement of the stay came from the Governor’s office. The strikers are culinary workers, bartenders, stagehands and musicians.
Officials in Wisconsin were checking stores today for bottles of Coca-Cola that might have been tampered with, after the death of a tax auditor was attributed to cyanide poisoning from a contaminated bottle of the soft drink. Residents were warned to examine bottles, but officials found no others that had been tampered with, District Attorney Denis Vogel of Manitowoc County said today. Some store owners removed some Coke from their shelves as a precaution.
The victim, Thomas Dresser, 34 years old, of Manitowoc, died Thursday at a highway rest area along Lake Michigan where he and his wife, Shelly, had planned to meet for lunch, Mr. Vogel said. Mrs. Dresser told the authorities that the two had agreed that she would bring the food and he would bring the drinks. Mr. Dresser was lying on the ground when Mrs. Dresser arrived, and probably died at the scene, Mr. Vogel said. Two 16-ounce Coca-Cola bottles with twist-off caps were found near the body, and portions of both had been consumed, he said. Tests showed that one bottle contained cyanide.
Previously confidential documents showed that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover used the agency to do favors for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller III, a noted historian said. Athan Theoharis, a Marquette University history professor who is writing a biography of Hoover, said in a copyrighted story in the Milwaukee Journal that Hoover used the bureau in the early 1940s to help Roosevelt find a relative who was in danger of dying of a liver ailment. while on a drinking binge. That relative was Kermit Roosevelt, son of former President Theodore Roosevelt, and a friend and distant cousin of the President, Theoharis said. He added that Hoover helped Rockefeller select a security system for a new home.
The U.S. led weapons exports to developing countries in 1983, according to a new study by the Congressional Research Service. Although the total value of military sales agreements between industrial and nonindustrial nations last year fell to the lowest level since the mid-1970’s, the United States share rose from 32 percent to 39 percent from 1982 to 1983. The Soviet share declined from 27 percent to 17 percent.
Twenty-seven percent of American households were touched by crime in 1983, down from 29 percent in 1982, the Justice Department said today. The department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics said nearly 23.6 million of the nation’s 86.1 million households experienced one or more crimes in the year. The 1982 total was nearly 25 million out of 85.2 million households. Robbery, aggravated assault and burglary were much less widespread in 1983. The number of households experiencing at least one robbery dropped by 19 percent, while the figures for aggravated assault and burglary dropped by 9 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
The figures are from the National Crime Survey, in which all occupants 12 years old or over in 60,000 households are interviewed every six months. They are asked whether they have been victims of rape, robbery, assault, larceny, burglary or motor vehicle theft. The figures are designed to show how widespread crime is, rather than the volume of crime. In 1983, rape and simple assault were the only crimes for which the decline in pervasiveness was not considered statistically significant. As in previous years, suburban households were less vulnerable to crime than were urban households, but more vulnerable than rural households were.
A clean-up of properties that were contaminated by radioactive uranium tailings in the 1950’s and 1960’s is proceeding slowly under the direction of Federal and state agencies. Many homes are involved in the clean-up, which was authorized by the $524 million Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Program. The Oak Ridge National Laboratories has listed 8,135 contaminated sites in the Rocky Mountain states, the Dakotas and in Canonsburg, Pa., the only one in the East.
“Oliver!” closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 17 performances.
Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey’s stage adaptation of her 1978 novel “A Woman of Independent Means”, starring Barbara Rush, closes at Biltmore Theatre, NYC, after 13 performances.
Scott Garrelts pitches 8 innings of scoreless relief, striking out 9, enabling the San Francisco Giants to edge the Montreal Expos, 4–3.
Born:
Hannah New, English actress (“Black Sails”, “The Time in Between”), in Balham, London, England, United Kingdom.
Died:
Stanislaw Ulam, 75, Polish-American mathematician and nuclear physicist (Manhattan Project, H-bomb).
History Diaries 