The destruction of eight ships in an attack on a convoy in Iranian waters in the northeast Persian Gulf was announced by Iraq. But no distress signals were picked up in the region and there was no independent confirmation that any ships had been hit. There have been delays of 24 hours or more in the past before such claims could be verified. An Iraqi military spokesman said this morning that Iraqi planes and naval vessels had set six ships ablaze, destroying them, in Iranian waters near the Khor Musa Channel, north of Kharg Island. In a second announcement monitored in Bahrain late this evening, Iraq said two more vessels in the same area had been destroyed by mines as they were trying to flee. “It was a violent and surprise attack,” the spokesman said in a statement distributed by the official Iraqi press agency.
The statements from Baghdad made no mention of the types of vessels struck. It was the second consecutive day that Iraq announced attacks against shipping. On Thursday Iraq said it had attacked two “naval targets” leaving Kharg Island. Hours later Iran said it had retaliated by attacking an oil tanker off the coast of Saudi Arabia, an ally of Iraq.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, disputed a statement Thursday by the State Department that Saudi jets had given chase after the Liberian-registered tanker, Chemical Venture, was attacked by an Iranian plane 21 miles off the Saudi port of Jubail. The Saudis said the ship was not in its territorial waters at the time of the attack. In Geneva, Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister, warned that oil from the gulf might be cut off not by direct military action but rather by cancellation of shipping insurance by Lloyd’s. “It would be militarily very difficult,” Mr. Yamani said, referring to fears in the gulf that Iran might try to close the Strait of Hormuz through military action. “And it would soon be reopened with the help of major powers,” he said.
Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said in an interview today that he feared that the Iran-Iraq conflict, now in its 44th month, would worsen unless a negotiated settlement could be found. “I’m very worried about the possibility of further escalation,” he said. Mr. Arafat is a member of a committee formed by the Islamic Conference Organization that is trying to mediate between Iran and Iraq.
President Reagan approves delivery of 200 stinger missiles to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Administration officials said today that unexpected opposition from members of Congress had forced President Reagan to limit the number of portable Stinger antiaircraft missiles that would be sent to Saudi Arabia for possible use against Iranian attack. Although no formal decision was made, the officials said that after a meeting with his senior national security advisers this morning, Mr. Reagan gave tentative approval for sending 200 Stinger missiles. But they said the President was inclined to hold off on seeking Congressional approval for 1,000 additional Stinger missiles sought by the Saudis. State Department officials said they did not expect any official announcement before Tuesday, as the White House and the State Department continued to call key members of Congress to seek their consent ahead of time and thereby avoid another political dispute.
Meanwhile, State and Defense Department officials said a second carrier would be sent to the northern Arabian Sea, south of the Persian Gulf, at least temporarily. They said the carrier, the USS America, would leave from Spain to replace the USS Kitty Hawk, which has been on station for several months. There would be an overlap of a few days, officials said. They sought to treat the matter in a low-key way and said there were no plans to augment the American naval presence in the area, which is limited to five destroyers and frigates in the Persian Gulf and the carrier battle group and auxiliary ships in the Arabian Sea.
Ethiopian MIG-23 jets attacked the Somalian town of Isha Baidoa today, killing four children and raising the toll to six dead and seven wounded in two days of air raids, the Somalian radio said. A raid by MIG-21’s and MIG-23’s on Abduwaq in central Somalia on Thursday killed two people and wounded seven, the broadcast said, quoting Defense Ministry reports. No more details were immediately available, and there was no comment from the Ethiopian Government.
Greased by an international political fund of $37 million, an election campaign is in full swing to elect a new European Parliament of 434 members for the next five years. The June 17 election is likely to be watched, however, as an interim referendum on how the current leaders of the 10 Common Market nations stand with the voters. This will be particularly true for President Francois Mitterrand of France, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain and Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou of Greece.
In the five years since the first European Parliament was elected in 1979, it can scarcely be said to have attracted great public interest. Nevertheless, it is history’s first multinational elected parliament, and it is a clear and visible underpinning of democracy in the Common Market. The Parliament’s powers are strictly limited-the ultimate decision-making power rests with the 10 governments-but its influence undeniably has grown in the last five years.
Simply getting out the voters to elect members to a distant, and rather faceless, body is the first problem in a number of countries in this election. In the first election five years ago, only 32% of those eligible went to the polls in Britain. In Denmark, the figure was 47%, about half the average in national elections, and in Holland it was 58%, two-thirds the normal election turnout. In that election, about $10 million was spent, most of it by the Common Market Commission on a neutral “get out the vote” campaign across Europe. The national political parties were left to find their own money to work up the necessary partisan enthusiasm.
Police in Belfast, Northern Ireland said today that 29 people were injured in a courtroom brawl that broke out when police attempted to clear the gallery, which was jeering an informer against Irish Republican Army terrorists.
China will send troops to Hong Kong when it regains control over the British colony in 1997, Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader, said, contradicting a Chinese official’s recent statement that troops would not be sent there. Within an hour of Mr. Deng’s announcement, the Hong Kong market index fell 30 points and then rose slightly.
More Soviet aid to North Korea might follow President Kim Il Sung’s visit to Moscow, his first in 20 years.
Indian President Zail Singh proclaimed central rule in the northeastern state of Sikkim today and dissolved the state legislature after 15 of the 28 legislators from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s ruling Congress Party resigned from the party, reducing it to a minority in the house. Under the Constitution, new elections to the 32-seat Legislative House must be held within six months. The resignations were in protest at the dismissal on May 14 of a former chief minister who had refused to resign in the face of accusations of corruption.
A demand for a gasoline price rise of 50 percent in the Dominican Republic led to the suspension of Government negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, which has been requesting tough austerity measures in exchange for financial aid.
Opposition parties in Nicaragua will be allowed by the Sandinista Government to undertake the first national political campaign since the 1979 guerrilla takeover. The Government announced that the opposition would be given 12 weeks to conduct their campaign. But opposition leaders said they would refuse to participate unless “laws which violate human rights” are repealed.
The murder of a Salvadoran teacher might never be solved because justice has a way of working differently when it is “just between Salvadorans,” according to the judge who presided in the trial this week of five former national guardsmen who had been charged with the 1980 slayings of four American churchwomen.
Chester A. Crocker, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, met with Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha of South Africa here today and later flew on for talks in Zambia with President Kenneth D. Kaunda. Western diplomats saw the discussions as an effort to revive the United States role in efforts to resolve the 17-year-old guerrilla war in South-West Africa and to assert United States insistence that the conflict should be ended in tandem with a withdrawal of Cuban soldiers from neighboring Angola. In another development, Willie van Niekerk, the South African Administrator General in South-West Africa, said 54 prisoners who were captured at an insurgent base inside Angola in 1978 were being released. Military spokesmen in South-West Africa said another 50 prisoners remained to be released.
The President and First Lady attend the Vietnam Unknown Soldier ceremony at Capitol Hill. A coffin bearing the remains of an unidentified American military casualty of the Vietnam War was placed in state at the Capitol Rotunda today as President Reagan prayed that “this hero be America’s last unknown.” The serviceman, said to be the only one among more than 58,000 American war dead who will elude identification by military pathologists, is to be buried Monday in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. The city’s early traffic exodus of the long Memorial Day weekend was interrupted near the Capitol as the unknown soldier’s gray metal coffin was transported to the ceremony that served as a 15-minute aftermath to the war that concluded 11 years ago. With the Stars and Stripes lashed on the top, the coffin was carried by eight servicemen and placed directly under the great dome of the Capitol. Sunlight streamed down and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was played as a dirge.
An array of Cabinet, Congressional and military officials watched as the coffin was placed atop the black catafalque first used for Lincoln and later used for the nation’s three other entombed Unknown Soldiers who died in the two World Wars and in the Korean War. “Our path must be worthy of his trust,” the President declared. “We must not betray his love of country.” Mr. Reagan, dressed in a black suit, placed a wreath of red and white carnations before the coffin. “We may not know his name,” the President said, “but we know his courage. He is the heart, the spirit and the soul of America.”
The President and First Lady depart for Camp David.
Because of his strength among party members and the way the party rules work to his advantage, Walter F. Mondale is gaining delegates almost every day to the Democratic Party Convention. Ohio’s Democratic leaders, for example, voted Thursday night to fill out their delegation with Mondale supporters, even though Mr. Mondale lost the Ohio Presidential primary on May 8 to Senator Gary Hart. The party leaders not only spurned the request of Senator Hart’s backers for a “fair share” of the final delegates; they also ignored the suggestion of the Democratic national chairman, Charles T. Manatt, that the Rev. Jesse Jackson be given additional delegates to reflect his share of the popular vote. The procedure here was similar to the ones followed in New York Wednesday night when Mr. Mondale picked up 14 more delegates and in Illinois two weeks ago where the former Vice President won an extra dozen.
Walter F. Mondale was booed by workers as he urged the closing of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California.
A gossip item about Jimmy Carter published in The Boston Herald saying that the former President had been turned away by a Boston restaurant because he was not wearing a jacket has been attacked as untrue by Carter aides. How the item came to be published and then widely repeated apparently without any attempt to verify it provides a case study in some press practices.
William J. Casey in his first response to a House subcommittee report that concluded that a Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign manager he was involved in the handling of briefing materials obtained from President Carter’s advisers, said the report was “politically motivated.” Mr. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence, has repeatedly denied any involvement in the affair.
A Federal district judge who earlier ruled that up to a million arrests made by police sweeps of crime- prone neighborhoods were illegal rescinded his ruling today, saying the city deserved a chance to be heard in the case. “This litigation raises serious questions and it is too important to deny a full opportunity to be heard,” said the judge, Prentice H. Marshall, in dropping his March 30 ruling. In that decision, Judge Marshall ordered the city to expunge between 800,000 and a million disorderly conduct arrests over the past five years and notify those arrested that they had the right to sue for damages, which could have cost the city millions of dollars.
Judge Marshall ruled in a suit filed in February 1983 by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the arrests as unconstitutional. He cited a habitual failure of city attorneys to file documents in such cases or show up for hearings. But today he granted the city’s request to cancel his previous order and allow its attorneys to prepare a defense against the civil liberties suit. Typically, in the sweep arrests, a suspect would spend the evening or night in jail and be released after posting bond, the liberties group said. But it said police officers routinely failed to show up in court for the trial, forcing dismissal of charges. The liberties group contended that this amounted to preventive detention, violating constitutional rights of due process and leaving the victims with arrest records without the opportunity to be vindicated in court.
A California aquarium’s proposal to capture 10 killer whales off Alaska, the first catch in American waters in more than a decade, was rejected today by Gov. Bill Sheffield of Alaska. Sea World Inc., which runs several marine parks and has its headquarters in San Diego, proposed catching 10 killer whales over a five-year period beginning this summer. In addition, it proposed temporarily detaining another 90 whales for research purposes. But Mr. Sheffield said Alaska would not issue Sea World a permit and would ask that the aquarium’s federal permit be withdrawn. Sea World officials have argued that they would not proceed without state sanction.
Waiters, cooks, bartenders and other workers have voted to end a 53-day strike for higher wages and other benefits at 13 Las Vegas gambling hotels, a trade union official said today. But picket lines are expected to remain at the hotels at least this weekend because the owners have said they will not accept returning union workers before next Tuesday, according to Jeffrey McColl, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Workers’ Union. Union officials have estimated that the strike has cost the desert gambling resort a million dollars a day in lost tourist income.
Iowa schoolchildren contributed $782 to the hunt for a classmate, toddlers were fingerprinted in Philadelphia, and Massachusetts officials pledged new efforts to find vanished children yesterday as the nation observed Missing Children’s Day. Meanwhile, the father of the Florida boy whose case led to renewed interest in the problem of missing children appealed for donors for children who face death unless they undergo transplants. And in San Francisco parents were asked to take posters and pictures of their missing sons and daughters to a rally across from City Hall.
According to Alfred S. Regner, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency, as many as 50,000 children are abducted each year by strangers and 150,000 by parents in custody disputes. From one million to two million children run away from home each year, and 10 percent do not return within six months, he said.
A dance instructor and an actor appeared in court today to face charges of sexually abusing students at the Minnesota Children’s Theater and School, a month after the theater’s director was arrested on similar charges. William Harren, 28 years old, the dance instructor, pleaded not guilty to a charge of third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a 15-year-old boy. Sean McNellis, 23, the actor, entered no plea to a charge of statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl. The theater’s artistic director, John Clark Donahue, 45, was charged April 18 with sexual conduct in the first and second degrees involving three boys who were his students. He resigned May 11.
Sotheby’s chairman announced that Michael L. Ainslie, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, would become president and chief executive officer of Sotheby’s Holdings Inc., parent company of the international art-auction house, in July.
The life expectancy of American men will rise to 80 years or more in the next century, and that of women into the 90’s, according to expert on aging of the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Maryland.
The Detroit Tigers lose to Seattle 7–3, ending a record-tying 17 consecutive road wins.
The Texas Rangers coast to an 11–0 win over the White Sox on the strength of Charlie Hough’s 3-hitter. Tom Seaver takes the loss. The Rangers score 7 times in the 3rd inning as Gary Ward makes all 3 outs with a ground out and a double play.
The Red Sox trade pitcher Dennis Eckersley and minor leaguer Mike Brumley to the Cubs for veteran Bill Buckner, who had been benched in Chicago in favor of Leon Durham. Buckner will immediately become Boston’s starting first baseman.
At Fenway, George Brett is a double shy of the cycle as he drives in 6 runs in the Royals 11–7 win over the Red Sox. Roger Clemens gives up 10 hits and 5 runs in 5+ innings.
Paced by Dave Kingman’s second grand slam of the year, the A’s score 6 runs in the 8th to beat the Yankees, 10–7. Oscar Gamble hits a 3-run homer in the 9th for the pinstripers.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1107.1 (+3.67).
Born:
Zak DeOssie, NFL linebacker (NFL Champions, Super Bowls 42 and 46-Giants, 2007, 2011; Pro Bowl, 2008, 2010; New York Giants), in North Andover, New Jersey.
Shawne Merriman, NFL linebacker (Pro Bowl, 2005-2007; San Diego Chargers, Buffalo Bills), in Washington, District of Columbia.
Kyle Brodziak, Canadian NHL centre (Edmonton Oilers, Minnesota Wild, St. Louis Blues), in St. Paul, Alberta, Canada.
Graham Taylor, MLB pitcher (Florida Marlins), in Covington, Kentucky.
Liz Moeggenberg (née Shimek), WNBA forward (Chicago Sky), in Empire, Michigan.
Unnur Birna Vilhjálmsdóttir, Icelandic actress and beauty queen who won 2005 Miss World, in Reykjavík, Iceland.
Marion Raven, Norwegian singer and songwriter (M2M), in Lørenskog, Norway.
History Diaries 