American support for Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries in any potential confrontation with Iran was affirmed by President Reagan in a message to King Fahd. In the letter, Mr. Reagan, apparently taking note of the stated desire of the Gulf countries to handle the problem by themselves, said the United States would be willing to help them if asked to do so.
Kuwait asked the U.N. Security Council to guarantee the safety of civilians in Israeli-occupied territory and accused Israel of “extermination and mutilation” of Palestinians. The Kuwaiti ambassador, Mohammed Abulhassan, said that 1,500 Israeli troops participated in a raid on a refugee camp near the Lebanese port of Sidon and that “dozens of refugees were killed, wounded and arrested.” Israeli Ambassador Yehuda Z. Blum, calling the charge “grotesque,” replied that Israeli forces raided the camp after receiving information that a large quantity of arms was stored there.
The leader of a militant pro-Iranian Shia Muslim militia said he escaped death when Israeli planes bombed a military camp used by his men in Syrian-held eastern Lebanon. Hussein Moussavi, chief of Islamic Amal, said he was at the camp south of Baalbek when the bombs exploded. Moussavi described the raid as an attempt by Israel to sow discord between the Syrian army and another pro-Tehran group, Hezbollah (Party of God).
Ethiopian troops have killed hundreds of their Somali rebel allies since last Thursday in fighting sparked by a dispute over tactics in their joint campaign against the Somali government, a Somali diplomat said. Abdi A. Liban, Somali charge d’affaires in Nairobi, Kenya, said Ethiopian troops have sealed off two rebel camps in Ethiopian-occupied northern Somalia to keep the rebels from defecting to the Somali government. However, a rebel spokesman in Nairobi denied that any fighting has taken place. No independent confirmation was available.
West German sources said today that Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko had rebuked the NATO allies for deploying new American nuclear missiles in Europe. He said Moscow would stay away from arms control talks until the missiles were removed. Mr. Gromyko made the remarks during a luncheon for Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher of West Germany after a three-hour morning meeting. The Soviet minister blamed the United States for the deadlock in arms control, dwelling at length on the topic in a 75-minute speech at the luncheon. Mr. Genscher told Mr. Gromyko during their talk, the sources said, that the West wanted to discuss all its differences with the East, especially resumption of the arms talks. The sources said Mr. Genscher had recalled that the Warsaw Pact said there were no issues that could not be resolved through talks.
Two Soviet spies were arrested in Belgium over the weekend for trying to obtain secret allied documents and will be expelled, the Belgian Justice Ministry said. It added that the case of a Soviet diplomat also is being investigated. The alleged spies and the diplomat were not identified, and there were no other details. The headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is in Brussels.
About 33,000 West German metalworkers joined a strike in support of a 35-hour work week today, and labor and management agreed to meet to see whether there was a basis for reopening talks. The strike is in its second week, and about 100,000 workers are on strike or have been laid off because of a lack of car parts made of metal. The walkout today shut down the Opel auto plant near Frankfurt.
The unofficial leader of Czechoslovakia’s Hungarian minority has been arrested, dissident sources in Budapest said today. They said they believed the arrest of Miklos Duray was related to his campaign against plans to cut Hungarian-language teaching in Czechoslovak schools. They said Mr. Duray, a geologist in his 40’s, was suspected of harming Czechoslovak interests abroad and could face as much as six years in prison if convicted. The sources said Mr. Duray was detained last week in Bratislava. Attempts to reach Mr. Duray’s home by telephone from Vienna encountered a constant busy signal.
Indian troops began patrolling riot-ravaged parts of Bombay, the nation’s richest and most important commercial and industrial center. Reports said the death toll from four days of fighting between Hindus and Muslims had risen to 110. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi toured strife-torn Bombay (today Mumbai) and appealed for calm as 4,000 troops patrolled the area, trying to halt Hindu-Muslim rioting that has claimed 110 lives in five days. “Now is not the time to blame but to bring peace,” said a visibly moved Gandhi, who comforted 50 wounded at a hospital and visited a relief camp housing some of the estimated 10,000 people who fled the riots. Meanwhile, there were reports of new violence near Bombay that claimed at least two more lives.
Six people have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping of an American couple by Tamil separatist guerrillas, and other suspects are being sought, the Sri Lankan government said. Stanley B. Allen and his wife, Mary Elizabeth, returned to their home in Ohio over the weekend after they were freed unharmed by the guerrillas, who had held them for five days.
Thousands of Muslims from rival sects clashed at a mosque in Lahore today, and at least 35 were injured, 6 of them seriously, witnesses reported. They said the trouble began when about 20,000 men of one sect marched from a shrine in Lahore, capital of Punjab Province, to the 17th-century Badshahi Mosque for a conference banned by Pakistan’s military Government. When men from the other sect tried to stop them, the rivals went at one another with sticks and fired pistols. It was not clear whether any of those injured had been shot. Both sides had planned rival conferences at Badshahi Mosque today, but one sect shifted to another mosque after the Government ban. The other ignored the ban and held the conference there after the clash.
General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, the military ruler of Pakistan, says neighboring India has massed three-quarters of its army on the border and has not responded to a proposal for a mutual reduction in troops. In an interview, he scoffed at Indian assertions that Pakistan was sending troops to the border in preparation for war. His comments came as Indian and Pakistani officials met in Islamabad for another round of discussions on a possible peace treaty between the two countries, which have fought three wars over the disputed Kashmir region since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.
An earthquake registering 6.2 on the Richter scale rolled across eastern China and also rocked Shanghai. The New China News Agency said the quake “was strongly felt” in five counties in Jiangsu province, but it did not report any casualties. It added that officials are assessing the damage.
A United States U-2 reconnaissance plane crashed today near the Osan Air Base, 30 miles south of Seoul, American military officials in South Korea said. The pilot was said to have bailed out and to have been picked up. According to an official statement, the crash occurred as the plane was leaving on a routine mission. The nature of the mission was not disclosed. The pilot, Captain David Bonsi, reportedly was taken to the base hospital, where he was listed in good condition. Captain Bonsi, who is normally assigned to the Beale Air Force Base in California, was described as being on a 60-day assignment in South Korea.
President Reagan welcomes and meets with President-elect Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador. Duarte pledged he “will never” request that United States troops fight in El Salvador. At the same time, the Salvadoran President-elect appealed to Congress to approve more aid for his country now without attaching what he called degrading conditions. A telephoned bomb threat briefly delayed Mr. Duarte’s speech at the Washington Hilton Hotel. The police cleared and searched the hall while outside about 200 protesters shouted slogans against American involvement in Central America and Mr. Duarte’s appeals for more aid. In his speech, Mr. Duarte called on Congress to adopt the Reagan Administration’s five-year, $8 billion aid program for Central America, including $178 million in military aid for El Salvador this year.
Mr. Duarte, who won election May 6 and is to be inaugurated June 1, said he understood that Americans were impatient at the pace of progress toward democracy in El Salvador, angered by the political violence of right-wing death squads and eager for an early political settlement of the country’s civil war. But after a day of meetings with President Reagan and other top Administration officials, he contended that the tight conditions on military aid advocated by many members of Congress were degrading and unacceptable to his country.
Federal agents have sent Colombian President Belisario Betancur a list of 120 fugitive drug dealers believed hiding in that country, asking him to return them to the United States for trial, Marshal Daniel Horgan said. Betancur, after the April 30 slaying of Colombia’s anti-drug justice minister, vowed to eliminate his nation’s cocaine and marijuana trafficking. Topping the wanted list are the Cardona sisters, who jumped bonds totaling $1.5 million in 1980.
The President and First Lady greet Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
The Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Margie Velma Barfield, bringing the North Carolina Death Row inmate a step closer to becoming the first woman executed in the United States since 1962. On a 7-2 vote, the justices refused to consider the latest appeal by Barfield, 51, who was convicted of killing her fiancé by poisoning him with arsenic. She is the only woman on North Carolina’s Death Row and has been there since December, 1978, the longest of any Death Row inmate in the state. Executions in North Carolina are carried out either by lethal injection or in the gas chamber. A new execution date will be set for Barfield during a hearing.
Two rulings on pretrial hearings were decided unanimously by the Supreme Court. The Justices ruled that parties to a civil lawsuit, including newspaper defendants in libel suits, may be barred from publishing information they learn in the process of pretrial discovery. The Court also ruled that a criminal defendant may in most cases insist that a pretrial hearing be open to the public and the press despite a prosecution request to conduct the hearing privately.
The House Appropriations Committee, continuing the congressional struggle with the Reagan Administration over control of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, will consider legislation Wednesday that would require the agency to spend certain amounts of its funds for purposes that civil rights advocates say it is neglecting. The committee will consider a bill requiring the commission to spend specified amounts of its $12.75-million budget on hearings, legal services, reports and studies, field operations and other activities.
A federal appeals court in New Orleans upheld the conviction of former CIA agent Edwin P. Wilson for supplying plastic explosives to terrorists in Libya. The court rejected arguments by Wilson’s attorneys that, among other things, Wilson was working as a CIA operative at the time of the deal and that the judge prohibited testimony from witnesses who could have helped him.
Health warnings on cigarette packs and advertising would be strengthened under a compromise reached by lobbyists for the tobacco industry and public health organizations. Congressional aides said they expected both the House and Senate to approve the plan soon. It would require the printing of four health warnings on a rotating basis.
U.S. gasoline supplies are rising and officials say that prices, bucking trends in other fuels, could even drop. The widening war in the Persian Gulf has driven up crude oil prices and increased worries about low oil inventories, but gasoline has barely reacted to the hostilities.
Hundreds of union workers demonstrating outside a strikebound auto parts company in Toledo, Ohio, clashed with police and at least 28 persons were arrested, several were injured and a police cruiser was set afire, authorities said. Other cruisers sustained flat tires and broken windshields as the workers, some carrying baseball bats and bricks, battled with police from late afternoon into the evening, said police Sgt. Rose Reder. Workers struck the plant May 2 over a 35% wage and benefit cut imposed by AP Parts at the beginning of March. Workers said the cuts were unbearable, but the company said it needed them to remain solvent.
A statewide grand jury was called today to begin an investigation of what a prosecutor calls “astounding” corruption in the government of the city of Providence, Rhode Island. “I think this is going to be quite a productive jury,” said Attorney General Dennis J. Roberts. “I think it’s going to be astounding to people the extent to which the taxpayers’ money has been stolen.” He requested the grand jury two weeks ago in a letter to Presiding Justice Anthony A. Giannini of Superior Court. The 23 members of the grand jury were to begin meeting sometime later this week. The grand jury will have 18 months to conduct its inquiry instead of the usual 90 days. State and Federal grand juries already have indicted eight city employees. Some were charged with taking kickbacks in city snow removal contracts. City officials said last week that a contractor was paid for repairs to city buildings that were not completed. The authorities also said they are looking into a federally financed summer lunch program for poor children.
The Massachusetts Jaycees elected a woman as their state president. A court injunction prohibits the U.S. Jaycees from fighting the election, but the national organization will continue opposing women members, a spokesman for the Tulsa-based national group said. “Despite what the national chapter says, many believe the goal of the Jaycees is the development of the individual, both men and women,” said the new president, Jean B. Hudson, 35, of Somerville, Massachusetts. However, Don Juensmann of the Jaycee headquarters said, “Allowing women into the Jaycees would change the purpose” of the organization, which he said is “to serve the needs of young men.”
Federal Aviation Administration head Donald Engen told Congress that he sees no need to license pilots of ultralight aircraft, but the FAA is closely monitoring the low-weight planes. Appearing before a House subcommittee, Engen said the ultralight industry is “doing a very good job of policing themselves.” Jim Burnett, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, testified that at least 63 persons died in ultralight accidents during a one-year period.
Residents of Stockbridge voted to allow a museum for Norman Rockwell’s paintings of rural American life to move to an estate in a residential neighborhood — a proposal some feared would destroy the quaint character of this western Massachusetts town. Residents at the town meeting cheered after voting 676 to 228 for a zoning change allowing the estate to be converted into a $3.3-million park and gallery for Rockwell’s works. A two-thirds vote was needed.
An agreement to settle with 10 hotels and one casino was in the final stages today as negotiators sought to end a 50-day strike that has cost the city and its workers tens of millions of dollars, according to officials. The five-year contract is to be presented to the culinary workers union for ratification if the 11 properties reach agreement with the striking musicians and stagehands, according to Philip Bowe, a lawyer for the culinary union. “This is the major breakthrough we’ve been waiting for,” said Governor Richard Bryan. “The strike is something we’ll feel for a long time to come, but I’m just delighted that we’ve had this breakthrough,” Governor Bryan said. “I’m anxious to get our people back to work, promoting Las Vegas as the resort city that it is.”
The new agreement would cover the M-G-M Grand, Frontier, Desert Inn, Sands, Showboat, Tropicana, Union Plaza, Mint, Castaways and Golden Gate hotels and the Silver Slipper casino. It would leave only eight hotels on strike, including three Holiday Inns, Sam’s Town, the California Hotel, the Marina, the Four Queens and the Las Vegas Club. Several of the eight have hired permanent replacements for striking workers, and the future of those workers has clouded the negotiations.
Fraternities and sororities were expelled from Maine’s Colby College today, after a judge rejected a last-minute attempt to block a new housing policy adopted by trustees of the private liberal-arts school. Workers at the Waterville campus prepared to begin $1.1 million in renovations to the fraternity houses Tuesday to convert them to regular dormitories. Today, Justice Robert L. Browne of Superior Court denied a request for an order that would have stopped the expulsion. The order was sought by Zeta Psi, one of the eight fraternities whose status was revoked after they were criticized as discriminatory and harmful to campus social life. The judge said the fraternity failed to provide evidence that it would ultimately prove its contention that a 1951 agreement with the college gives the group the right to exist. “This court is not convinced that the plaintiff has met its burden,” Justice Browne wrote, after hearing two days of testimony last week.
An Alaskan hamlet is in trauma over the apparent murders of seven of its 75 or so residents. In the wake of a shootout that killed the presumed killer, residents are mourning their missing and looking again with wariness on strangers.
A rare and dramatic solar eclipse will occur on May 30 when a diamond necklace of light will surround the dark moon as it passes directly in front of the sun. The spectacular event may be glimpsed briefly in the United States along a thin line from Louisiana to Virginia.
Human emotions are being studied by research psychologists in closer detail than ever before. Richard Davidson, a leading psychologist, said, “Now, for the first time, there are ways to get objective measures of emotions.”
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1125.31 (-8.48).
Born:
Brandon Fields, NFL punter (Pro Bowl, 2013; Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints), in Southfield, Michigan.
Jarrett Bush, NFL defensive back (NFL Champions-Super Bowl 45-Packers, 2010; Green Bay Packers), in Vacaville, California.
Gary Woodland, American golfer (U.S. Open, 2019), in Topeka, Kansas.
Died:
Andrea Leeds, 70, American actress (“Stage Door”, “Earthbound”), of cancer.
Ann Little, 93, American actress (“Roaring Road”).
History Diaries 