Iran was accused of aggression in the Persian Gulf war by the Foreign Ministers of the 21-member Arab League. The ministers accused Iran of aggression against Iraq and specifically in connection with attacks against Arab shipping in the Persian Gulf. In a rare departure from its usual public unanimity, the group overruled objections from Syria and Libya, the only Arab League supporters of Iran.
Vice President George Bush, on returning to Washington from a two-week trip to the Near and Far East, said the Reagan Administration does not intend to “intervene unilaterally” in the Persian Gulf in the wake of attacks on commercial shipping in the gulf. Bush added, “… I think the last thing that would be constructive, would be unilateral intervention by any outside force, including the United States.”
Israel attacked bases in Lebanon belonging to pro-Iranian Shiite guerrillas. It was first attack by Israeli planes in Lebanon since early April and appeared to be a response to an increasing number of guerrilla attacks against Israel troops in southern Lebanon by Lebanese Shiite groups.
Soviet submarines off the U.S. have been increased by Moscow, and their nuclear missiles are within 10 minutes of American targets, the Soviet Defense Minister, Dmitri F. Ustinov, said. Marshal Ustinov also said the number of SS-20 medium- range missiles in the European part of the Soviet Union would be increased “accordingly” if the United States proceeds with its plan to deploy additional Pershing 2 and cruise missiles in Western Europe.
A bitter attack on Yelena G. Bonner, Andrei D. Sakharov’s wife, published in Moscow by the Government newspaper Izvestia, indicated that criminal charges were being prepared against her. Izvestia said that she had “gone too far in her anti-Soviet activities” and that law-enforcement agencies were taking measures against her.
Two Soviet soldiers who were captured by guerrillas in Afghanistan were freed after two years of internment in Switzerland today, but they decided not to return to the Soviet Union, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said. A third Soviet soldier, who was also freed today, left Zurich on a flight to Moscow. The two who elected to stay were given one-year Swiss residency permits, which a Foreign Ministry spokesman said could be renewed annually. The spokesman said they had not applied for asylum, and he denied contentions by the Soviet Ambassador in Bern that the Swiss authorities had influenced the pair to stay in Switzerland. Eleven captured Soviet soldiers have been flown to Switzerland for internment, under an agreement worked out in 1982 by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Afghan guerrillas and the Swiss, Soviet and Afghan Governments.
Tens of thousands of people took part in demonstrations in more than a dozen Spanish cities to protest U.S. policies and Spain’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In Barcelona, about 60,000 demonstrators formed a human chain spanning nine miles past the U.S. Consulate and the consulates of other NATO member states. Spain joined NATO in 1982, but its armed forces have not yet been integrated into the alliance. Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez has called for a referendum next year on NATO membership.
Helmut Kohl was turned down when he sought, through intermediaries, an invitation to the D-Day commemorative ceremonies June 6 that will be attended by Allied chiefs of state in Normandy. The Allied officials reportedly reacted with a mixture of surprise and discomfort at the West German interest in being invited, but were said to show some sympathy for Chancellor Kohl.
Willy Brandt, who was the West German Chancellor from 1969 to 1974, was re-elected chairman of the opposition Social Democratic Party today by a vote of 391 to 19 at a party congress here. Mr. Brandt, 70 years old, has led the party for 20 years. Mr. Brandt told the party that to regain power it must win over some voters who have supported rightist parties. He said the Social Democrats had lost “a large part of half a political generation” to the anti-NATO Greens Party, which he said had helped conservatives by not working more closely with the Social Democrats. Helmut Schmidt, another former Chancellor, resigned from the party’s governing board today after 16 years. He led the nation from 1974 until 1982.
The Portuguese Government increased prices for bread and milk today by 18 to 20 percent as part of an austerity campaign intended to reduce public deficits. The increases were made to offset a 35 percent devaluation of the escudo against the dollar since last July, Trade Minister Alvaro Barreto said. Portugal buys more than three million tons of foreign grain each year and pays for most of its imports in dollars. Bread will now cost the equivalent of 48 cents for 2.2 pounds while a quart of pasteurized milk will cost 28 cents. The average industrial wage in Portugal is about $180 a month. Mr. Barreto also announced price increases for a number of imported raw materials. They are expected to push up retail prices of sugar, vegetable oil products and soap by about 15 percent.
Vietnam said its forces “put out of action” more than 5,000 Chinese soldiers in clashes in its northern border provinces over the last seven weeks. In a broadcast, the official Vietnam News Agency also asserted that Vietnamese troops destroyed 34 Chinese artillery positions, 35 vehicles, 5 ammunition depots and a number of field headquarters. It did not give Vietnamese military casualties but said that Chinese attacks killed “hundreds” of civilians. There was no independent verification of the claims.
The Cambodian Government declared today a National Day of Hatred to commemorate the more than 2.7 million people who it says died during the reign of terror by the Pol Pot regime from 1975 to 1979. The Cambodian press agency reported that a mass meeting was held in Phnom Penh. It said the Day of Hatred was called to allow people to vent their anger against Mr. Pol Pot and other enemies of the nation, including the “American imperialists” and the “Chinese expansionists.”
Vietnam invaded Cambodia on December 25, 1978, and installed the current Government, which is headed by Heng Samrin, on January 10, 1979. In a dispatch monitored in Bangkok, the Cambodian press agency said May 20, 1975, “was the day the Pol Pot gang began to implement its systematic, overt and savage genocidal policy against the Kampuchean people throughout the country.” The agency cited a government study that says 2,746,105 people were killed or died from hunger or exhaustion in the Pol Pot years. Western experts place the death toll closer to 1.5 million.
China’s modernization efforts are being hampered by a lack of funds, by radical leftists and by “senile” Maoist-era bureaucrats who should be replaced, Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang said in Peking. Hu’s remarks were reported by the official New China News Agency. They were the latest in a series of government attacks on the aging ranks of entrenched leftist cadres in China’s bureaucracy.
Indian troops were sent to Bombay (now Mumbai) to quell Hindu-Muslim rioting that has killed at least 83 people, injured more than 200 and left thousands homeless in four days of violence. “Our forces were getting tired and we needed more men, a police spokesman said. “The situation is very tense.” He added that 1,200 people have been arrested. The sectarian fighting began in the city of Bhiwandi and spread to Bombay, 35 miles southwest. Religious fanatics were blamed for the deaths of 20 members of one Muslim family, whose hut was set afire.
Bombay (Mumbai) police opened fire on warring Hindu and Muslim factions. The death toll in three days of fighting between the factions in the cities of Bombay, Bhiwandi and Thanae has risen to 75, with 13 more death reported Sunday. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced that she would travel Monday to the troubled sections of western India in an effort to calm the factions.
Jose Napoleon Duarte, President- elect of El Salvador, said on a visit to Washington that he was confident that the Salvadoran Army would support his efforts to introduce democracy and abolish right-wing death squads. He said that after discussions with the military leadership he had decided to ask General Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova to remain as Defense Minister because the general had accepted his program and had agreed to make “a declaration of loyalty and support for democracy.”
Amnesty International charged that a “large proportion” of the civilians killed since the 1979 military coup in El Salvador were victims of “execution by government, military and security forces.” The London-based human rights group, in a new report, said the government itself has shown a “blatant failure” to investigate killings by regular forces and unofficial death squads. That failure is evidence that it is “the authorities themselves who lie behind the wholesale… execution of people from all sectors of Salvadoran society,” Amnesty International said. The report, based on a six-day investigation in El Salvador in July, 1983, also said the U.S. Embassy was “seriously deficient” in gathering information on the killings.
Former President Maria Estela Peron returned to Argentina to help reorganize the once-powerful political movement that bears her name and warned Peronist leaders to “behave” or risk a “spanking.” Peron, who was overthrown in a military coup in 1976 after 21 months in office, arrived from Spain, where she has lived since her release from house arrest in Argentina in 1981. Peron and a delegation from her party are expected to meet with Argentine President Raul Alfonsin this week.
Unspent funds at the Pentagon are at the highest level since the Vietnam War era. The backlog reflects the Reagan Administration’s vast military buildup, and it has created management and budget problems for the Pentagon and Congress. According to official Government figures for 1981 through 1983, the backlog of money approved by Congress and signed into contracts, yet not paid out by the Pentagon, increased by 89 percent, to more than $128 billion from $68 billion. Over the same period, the backlog of unspent funds awaiting selection of a contractor rose by 79 percent, to $43 billion from $24 billion.
The President and First Lady host a reception for the National Republican Heritage Groups Council.
The President and First Lady enjoy dinner with their daughter, Mrs. Maureen Reagan Revell.
Alaska state troopers were searching for seven people believed killed by a gunman who shot and killed a trooper Saturday and was killed in the exchange of fire with the trooper. The other people believed to have been killed by the gunman, Charles Silka, a newcomer to Alaska from Illinois, all disappeared within a two-hour period Thurday from the vicinity of Manley Hot Springs, about 150 miles north of Fairbanks.
The Reagan Administration has told cities to trim their requests for Federal assistance in building public transit systems, saying the $19 billion they want is not there. Ralph Stanley, head of the Urban Mass Transit Administration, said his agency expected to distribute about $1.2 billion through 1986 for construction of transit rail systems. The cities are seeking $6 billion for 17 projects. As for requests for an additional $13 billion for 30 other projects, he said, there is no way that those sizable demands can be accommodated without raising gasoline taxes, a move he said the Administration, and probably Congress, would strongly oppose.
Walter F. Mondale predicted victory in the Democratic Presidential primaries in New Jersey and California on June 5 and said he would gain enough delegates to insure his nomination. At the same time, Mr. Mondale dismissed complaints from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of his two major opponents, that the Democratic delegate selection process is unfair. “I think these rules are good rules, honorable rules,” the former Vice President said of the process in an appearance on the ABC News program “This Week.” Mr. Mondale also ridiculed Senator Gary Hart’s recent contention that a sizable share of Mondale delegates have been elected through the use of funds that may be illegal.
Two Western Democratic governors disagreed over how many undocumented aliens are working in the United States and what should be done to slow the flow of illegal immigrants. “We have a system that is out of control.” Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Lamm favors a proposal to put more responsibility on employers to police their workforce. But New Mexico Governor Toney Anaya, who opposes employer sanctions, said, “We need to start enforcing laws we already have, like the fair labor standards laws and minimum wage laws, before we start putting more laws on the books.” Anaya said that at most, 2 million undocumented aliens are in the country. Lamm said the number is between 6 million and 12 million.
The U.S. Surgeon General declared the country’s No. 1 health goal to be a “smoke-free society by the year 2000. I think this ought to be the accepted goal for all Americans, not a goal set by the surgeon general or the U.S. Public Health Service,” C. Everett Koop told a meeting in Miami Beach of the American Lung Association.
Thousands of people took free opening-day rides on Miami’s new Metrorail, a $1-billion elevated rail system that was 25 years in the making, officials said. Officials had expected 40,000 to take advantage of the day’s free ride and gala dedication party at each of 10 stations, but the crowd exceeded their expectations. Riders got balloons and party favors, and hawkers offered sandwiches and beer before an afternoon dedication ceremony. The train runs 11 miles from suburban Kendall to downtown Miami and tickets cost $1.
The Diablo Canyon atomic reactor in California was restarted after a five-day shutdown to get ready for heat-removal tests. The Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said the reactor is now operating at 3% of capacity — 2% less than the power allowed by the test permit issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Four hours after the reactor was restarted, a PG&E spokeswoman said, the four reactor coolant pumps were turned off to allow natural circulation of coolant to begin.
Artist Norman Rockwell’s former neighbors in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, who often served as subjects for his portraits of rural America, square off today at a meeting to determine if those paintings stay in town. Officials of the Old Corner House, a museum that houses 500 Rockwell paintings, want to move to a neighborhood where they will need a zoning change. But opponents contend that the area’s narrow country roads, already in poor shape, would never be able to handle the 100,000 tourists who would descend upon the village each year to visit the museum.
Mike Edwards, 13 years old, an eighth grader from the Kinkaid School in Houston, won the first national championship in the Mathcounts program Saturday. The contest involved 192 seventh and eighth graders who had outscored schoolmates at the state and local levels and got trips to Washington for the finals. The program started in Chicago three years ago to help inner-city students do better in mathematics.
A once-feared “epidemic” of drinking problems among women has not occurred, reports the author of a nationwide survey on women and alcoholism. “We didn’t see any evidence of dramatic increases in drinking among women in general,” said Dr. Sharon Wilsnack, associate professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine. But unmarried women and women in certain age groups did seem to have more alcohol-related problems. “There were really not any dramatic changes between 1971 and 1981,” Wilsnack said. Her findings will be presented this week at a national research conference on women and alcohol in Seattle.
A test to identify an AIDS carrier before he donates blood should be available in the United States in three to six months, Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret M. Heckler said. Heckler, appearing in New York on WNBC-TV, said a vaccine for the deadly disease would be “a little longer in coming.” Scientists announced in April they had strong evidence that HTLV-III, a human cancer virus, causes AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
The forecast called for fair weather when the 52-foot Fairwind and the 46-foot Sea Fever set out from Cape Cod on November 21, 1980, for a week of lobster fishing. By midafternoon the next day four men were dead and a fifth was adrift in a life raft in a hurricane. Honour Brown was five months pregnant when she became a widow. Now she and relatives of two other lobstermen who were lost are suing the National Weather Service for $3.2 million, charging it was at fault. The nonjury trial began more than a week ago and is expected to conclude Tuesday or Wednesday. Michael Latti, the lawyer who is representing the fishermen’s families, rested his case Friday. David Hutchinson of the Justice Department opens the government case Monday.
A slow-moving cluster of thunderstorms hovered over the sodden Gulf Coast, drenching parts of Louisiana with nine inches of rain and flooding streets in Texas and causing flash-flood alerts. Hikers and sightseers were evacuated from American Fork Canyon in Utah because of mudslides. Temperatures rose to the 80s in most of Utah, but authorities said they hoped to contain flooding caused by the melting snowpack.
Revival of George Abbott, Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart’s musical “On Your Toes” closes at Virginia Theater, NYC, after 505 performances.
Boston’s Roger Clemens strikes out 7 batters in 7 innings en route to his first Major League victory, 5–4 over the Minnesota Twins.
Born:
Kenny Vasoli, American rock singer-songwriter, and musician (Vacationer), in Abington, Pennsylvania.
Patrick Ewing, Jr., NBA small forward (New Orleans Hornets), son of Patrick Ewing, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Keith Grennan, NFL defensive end (San Diego Chargers), in Edmonds, Washington.
Died:
Peter Bull, 72, British (“The African Queen”, “Tom Jones”, “Dr. Strangelove”) actor and author, of a heart attack.
History Diaries 