The possibility of military aid to protect shipping in the Persian Gulf is being discussed by Washington and its allies, according to President Reagan. But, in a news conference, he said the possibility of direct American intervention was “very slight.” At a televised news conference, Mr. Reagan said “we have not volunteered to intervene, nor have we been asked to intervene” as a result of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf by both Iran and Iraq. He added, “So far it seems as if the Gulf states want to take care of this themselves.” On another subject, Mr. Reagan minimized the danger implied by the recently announced decision by the Soviet Union to place more nuclear missile submarines off the American coasts.
Fighting between rival Muslim and Christian factions erupted tonight along the Green Line dividing Beirut. Residents said flares lighted up the city’s southern suburbs, and bursts of gunfire and explosions could be heard from the Green Line, where Muslim forces in West Beirut confront loyalist army units and the Christian “Lebanese forces” militia in the east.
The House of Representatives voted unanimously to condemn Iran for its persecution of members of the Bahai faith. The resolution was sent to the Senate after House members accused the government of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of genocide against the Bahais. The Bahai religion, founded in Persia in the 19th Century, is clergyless and embraces the prophets of several faiths.
Soviet forces are digging in for a long stay in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley but are still facing guerrilla attacks in areas outside the valley along the main highway from Kabul to the Soviet Union, Western diplomats in Pakistan said. The Soviet drive, launched in April, pushed farther into the strategic valley north of Kabul than six previous offensives, and the Soviets are building fortified encampments halfway up the valley, the diplomats said.
A Soviet Army deserter has hidden in Poland with the aid of the Solidarity underground since the imposition of martial law in December 1981. In a clandestine interview, the 21-year-old former soldier told of being sheltered in more than 20 homes.
The judge in Britain’s biggest terrorism trial removed himself from the case today, a day after the proceedings began, and ordered a new trial. Crown Court Judge John MacDermott said he was discharging himself from the case because the prosecution’s comments about the reliability of its star witness, Raymond Gilmour, a police informant, “cannot be sustained by admissible evidence.” Judge MacDermott, hearing the case without a jury, ordered a new trial to begin next Tuesday with a new judge. On trial are 39 purported members of the outlawed Irish Republican Army and its leftist offshoot, the Irish National Liberation Army, who face a total of 186 charges ranging from armed robbery to murder. In his opening statement on Monday, the prosecutor, Sir John McLeavy, said Mr. Gilmour’s information to the police had been “reliable and accurate.” A defense lawyer, Desmond Boal, objected, saying the prosecution view of Mr. Gilmour’s information was unwarranted and damaging to his case. Judge MacDermott agreed and said that if the case had been heard by a jury “I would have discharged that jury and recommended with a fresh jury.” He said the “credit-worthiness” of Mr. Gilmour was the primary issue.
British-Soviet spy accusations were exchanged. Moscow ordered the expulsion of a British diplomat who was identified at a public inquest in London last week as the security chief in the British Embassy. London said the expulsion was “totally unjustified” and in retaliation for Britain’s unannounced expulsion of a Soviet Embassy official identified at a British spy trial last month as a senior official of the K.G.B.
The Soviet ambassador to France denied reports that dissident scientist Andrei D. Sakharov has been hospitalized and is being force-fed. Ambassador Yuli M. Vorintsov said in Paris that Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, are both “in satisfactory condition” and staying at their exile home in Gorky. Sakharov went on a hunger strike May 2 to pressure Soviet authorities to allow his wife to travel to the West for medical treatment. Meanwhile, President Reagan called on the Soviets to “do the humane thing” and allow Bonner to leave the country, but he refused further comment because “anything I might say might be injurious” to the couple.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter, said today that the Soviet Union and the United States appeared to have come “to the end of the road” on reaching major strategic arms control agreements. Mr. Brzezinski cautioned against a playing into Soviet hands in the Persian Gulf by United States military involvement without the collaboration of British and French forces and a clear invitation from Arab governments. Even if these conditions are met, he said, there are risks that American involvement in the Gulf conflict could drive Iran toward Moscow.
In a breakfast interview with reporters, Mr. Brzezinski said the Soviet leadership, in its campaign to drive a wedge between Western Europe and the United States on the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe, had engaged in sharp threats to Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti during his recent visit to Moscow. Mr. Brzezinski said he had been told by Italian and American officials that either Konstantin U. Chernenko, the Soviet leader, or Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko had warned Mr. Andreotti that “we will turn Italy into a Pompeii” if Italy continues to accept deployment of American missiles. Last December, the United States deployed cruise missiles in Sicily, and more are scheduled this fall.
Turkish Cypriots have drafted a new constitution, paving the way for general elections that will firmly establish the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, officials said today. The officials said the draft, which says Turkish Cypriots are an inseparable part of the Turkish nation, was expected to be submitted soon to a 70- member constituent assembly. The new nation, declared last November nine years after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, has been condemned internationally, and only Turkey recognizes it.
A Turkish military court has sentenced 13 people to death after trying 191 suspects on charges of murder, plotting to overthrow the Government and other offenses, martial-law authorities said today.
China disclosed a new military service law today that will reduce the size of its army and restore ranks, which were abolished during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. The legislation will also step up officer training and increase the number of reservists. The army Chief of Staff, Yang Dezhi, announced the new law in a speech to the National People’s Congress, the ceremonial Parliament, which will give its formal approval before the end of its annual session on May 30. The new law will still require all 18- year-old males to register for active service.
Jose Napoleon Duarte won predictions in Congress that an all-day lobbying effort would help to gain approval for $62 million in emergency military aid for El Salvador. After the Salvadoran President held a 90-minute meeting with House Democratic leaders, Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. said, “I think the votes are there overwhelmingly.”
A Salvadoran appeals court has cleared an army lieutenant of charges that he killed two American labor advisers, officials said in San Salvador. “There could be 100 witnesses against (Lt. Rodolfo) Lopez Sibrian, but no judge can touch him anymore.” special prosecutor Reynaldo de Jesus Llane said. Two corporals had claimed that the officer ordered them to kill Michael P. Hammer, 42, of Potomac, Maryland, and Mark David Pearlman, 36, of Seattle, at a hotel coffee shop January 3, 1981. A lower court acquitted Lopez Sibrian in April, 1983.
A painted Maya tomb has been found in a dense, remote jungle area of northern Guatemala. The more than 1,500-year-old tomb is untouched by looters and is in nearly perfect condition. Maya scholars consider the finding a major discovery. Among the contents are elaborate wall paintings, a male skeleton wrapped in the remnants of a shroud, and a jar with hieroglyphics and a screw-top lid that was greeted with amazement by archeologists.
A Paraguayan judge ordered police to search for and capture Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele in connection with a West German extradition request, official sources said. The request, the third from the Bonn government in 12 years, was presented to the Foreign Ministry last week, they said. Paraguayan authorities deny that Mengele, dubbed “the Angel of Death” for the gruesome genetic experiments he performed on detainees at the Auschwitz concentration camp, is living in the country. They said that his Paraguayan citizenship was annulled in 1979.
Peruvian military pilots dropped dynamite charges from helicopters to destroy 29 clandestine jungle airstrips used by cocaine traffickers, authorities said in Lima. The flight command in Tingo Maria, Peru’s “cocaine cradle,” said 13,200 pounds of illegal cocaine paste were seized and more than 50 people arrested in “Operation Bronco,” a three-week-old campaign. Interior Minister Luis Percovich said army units may join in the final phase of the operation.
The first commercial European Ariane rocket launched an American communications satellite toward a stationary orbit. It was the first launch under the auspices of Arianespace, a French company that took over Ariane operations from the European Space Agency. and the ninth Ariane blastoff from the space center at Kourou, French Guiana. The satellite, owned by GTE Spacenet Corp., of McLean, Virginia, is designed to provide video and communications services to commercial customers in all 50 states. GTE paid Arianespace $25 million for the launch.
President Reagan participates in a National Security Council meeting regarding safety measures at U.S. nuclear weapon storage facilities.
President Reagan participates in his 24th press conference.
Law firms may not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, religion or national origin in deciding which young lawyers to promote to the status of partner, under a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court in a sex discrimination case.
William J. Casey is implicated in Congress’s year-long investigation into how briefing papers prepared for President Carter were obtained by the 1980 Presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan, according to Congressional sources. They said that Mr. Casey, who served as Mr. Reagan’s campaign manager and is now Director of Central Intelligence, obtained the documents.
A pension-equity bill was approved overwhelmingly by the House. The measure would liberalize pensions, especially for women, by lowering the vesting age to 18, guaranteeing access to benefits and prohibiting penalties during such job absences as maternity leave. Similar legislation has been approved by the Senate and is supported by the Reagan Administration.
The Senate voted 96 to 0 for legislation that would establish uniform nationwide standards for determining Social Security benefits for the disabled and make certain that recipients understood them. Further, recipients would continue to collect benefits during their appeals. Benefits currently are stopped while the appeal is pending. The bill is designed to prevent overzealous government officials from needlessly denying the benefits, sponsors said. The legislation now will go to a House-Senate conference.
An out-of-court settlement of $375,000 averted a Chicago trial that I would have asked a jury to determine how much agony the victims of the nation’s worst air disaster suffered in the final minute of their lives. “The Suttons are very happy,” said Thomas Demetrio, an attorney for the heirs of the Stephen Sutton family, who were among 273 victims of the May 25, 1979, crash of an American Airlines DC-10 shortly after takeoff at O’Hare International Airport.
The top Army and Air Force generals signed a new agreement aimed at improving cooperation in fighting any future air-land battles and eliminating some costly duplications of weapons and missions. “We’re going to have to squeeze every capability out of the resources we have,” said General Charles A. Gabriel, Air Force chief of staff. General John A. Wickham Jr., Army chief of staff, told a Pentagon news conference a major goal is to get the most out of what he termed “limited defense dollars.”
About 250 non-union employees left an auto parts plant in Toledo, Ohio, under police protection after spending the night inside the building while hundreds of striking workers staged a violent protest outside. Thirty police officers patrolled the main gates of AP Parts Co., where an estimated 2,000 people rallied Monday in a show of solidarity for the 450 members of the United Auto Workers striking over wages and work rules. At the height of the protest, 700 of the marchers tried to storm the plant gates as police used tear gas. About 50 persons were arrested and seven, including five police officers, were injured slightly.
The House, caught up in election-year debate over federal spending, rejected an increase in the government’s borrowing authority. The 263-150 vote came as the Treasury crept close to the present $1.49 trillion debt limit. At last count, on Friday, the government had borrowed all but $4 million of that authority. The Treasury Department says it must have an increase by Thursday or it will have to suspend sales of U.S. Savings Bonds and rearrange auctions of other securities. If the government were without borrowing authority for longer than several days, Social Security and other federal checks might be affected.
The FBI has disciplined 20 employees, including some agents, for failing to admit during an internal investigation that they had advance access to a test for would-be FBI agents, a bureau spokesman said. The 20, some of whom are support or clerical employees, were either censured or suspended and put on probation, but no one was fired. The discipline was confined to those “who were not completely candid with our investigators” who looked into the cheating, FBI spokesman Bill Baker said. The 1978 test was revised in 1982 as a result of the cheating, he said.
The House approved a $15.5 billion appropriations bill, including $7.4 billion for nuclear weapons — $400 million less than the Reagan Administration wanted — and nearly $4 billion in water projects nationwide. The measure providing fiscal 1985 funds for the Department of Energy, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Reclamation won House approval and was sent to the Senate.
The Senate unanimously approved a bill today that would require the Federal Government to establish guidelines for compensation of veterans whose illnesses were traced to Agent Orange, the toxic defoliant used in the Vietnam War. The bill, approved by a vote of 95 to 0, would also aid veterans whose illnesses were traced to radiation from the detonation of a nuclear device. The bill is supported by the Administration, which opposed a House-passed bill that found a connection between the defoliant and three diseases thought to be caused by Agent Orange and authorized disability benefits for those who suffered from the three. The three illnesses named in the House bill were chloracne, a skin condition; porphyria cutanea tarda, a liver condition, and a cancer known as soft tissue sarcoma. A House-Senate conference will seek to resolve differences in the two measures.
Rules for regulating carcinogens were issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology after a two-year study. It was the final draft of efforts to establish a uniform Federal policy for regulating cancer-causing substances. The draft was praised by environmentalists and public health scientists who had criticized earlier drafts.
Jesse Jackson resumed criticism of the Democratic Party’s convention rules. In a meeting with Charles T. Manatt, chairman of the party’s national committee, Mr. Jackson urged a change in the rules to allow for a Presidential aspirant’s total primary votes in a state to be considered in allotting delegates.
Federal District Judge U.W. Clemon removed himself today from the trial of nine Ku Klux Klansmen because he was once warned his name appeared on a Klan “hit list” for assassination. Judge Clemon, the first black lawyer from Alabama appointed to the Federal bench, filed notice that he is stepping down from the case in which Klansmen were accused of violating the civil rights of black demonstrators by attacking them in Decatur, Alabama, on May 26, 1979. Judge Clemon at the time was a practicing attorney representing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in its demonstrations against the conviction of Tommy Lee Hines, a retarded black man accused of robbing and raping a white woman. Judge Clemon later directed a successful appeal for Mr. Hines. “In August 1979 I was alerted by Federal and state law enforcement officials to information indicating that my name was included with three other black leaders on a list for a planned assassination by persons associated with the North Alabama Ku Klux Klan,” the judge said today.
Major water pollution in Florida has generated an intensive campaign to combat what may be a serious threat to the state’s ability to accommodate its rapid growth. A high state environmental official said, “The potential for serious, almost irreversible problems exists more here than in any other state.”
Four people will be prosecuted for smuggling babies born to impoverished Mexican women into the United States and selling them to couples in Utah, but state courts must decide whether the infants are citizens, the authorities said today. David Almarez, an assistant United States Attorney, said three Laredo women entered guilty pleas Friday to charges in the baby smuggling case. One of them will testify in Utah next month, he said, in the trial of Nelda Karen Caldwell of Layton, Utah, who police say placed the babies in homes.
The Federal Highway Administration has cleared the way for federal support for a 2.4-mile highway from downtown Atlanta to former President Jimmy Carter’s proposed Presidential library, but opponents say they will fight the road in court. The approval assures federal support for the road, which has met intense opposition since it was proposed two years ago. The opponents charge that the road will cut through some of Atlanta’s historic neighborhoods. The four-lane parkway is designed to connect downtown with Atlanta’s eastern suburbs and to serve as an access road to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Emory Policy Center.
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, faced with increased fraudulent use of telephone credit cards, says it will bar direct-dial credit-card calls from south Florida to 26 countries next week. The nations include most of Central and South America, some in the Caribbean and some in Asia including Israel. “The countries selected for the suspension of credit card calls are places to which a majority of international fraudulent calls are being made,” said an A.T.&T. spokesman, Barry Johnson.
A Norman Rockwell museum will be built in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where the painter lived for 25 years. Residents approved construction of the museum after an intense debate. Opponents said they feared the attraction would overwhelm the sleepy Berkshires town with tourists.
Fredbird, the mascot of the St. Louis Cardinals, tackles the Astros’ Enos Cabell in pre-game warmups. Cabell aggravates a knee injury. Heated words are exchanged between the two clubs but Houston gets revenge in the twelfth when Mark Bailey triples off Bruce Sutter to key a 4–3 victory.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1116.62 (-8.69).
Born:
Joe Lauzon, American martial artist, in Brockton, Massachusetts.
Died:
John Marley [Mortimer Marlieb], 76, American actor (“Cat Ballou”; “Love Story”; “The Godfather”), following unsuccessful open-heart surgery.
History Diaries 