President Reagan hosts a dinner in honor of the 35th Anniversary of the North Atlantic Alliance. President Reagan presents Secretary General Luns of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with the Medal of Freedom.
The Persian Gulf war was discussed by Secretary of State George P. Shultz and other NATO foreign ministers in an 18th-century mansion on the Maryland shore. Alliance officials said the ministers had talked about what steps, if any, NATO members could take individually to limit the spread of the conflict, but reached no decisions.
Meanwhile, Iraq reported hitting another large ship near Iran’s main oil terminal at Kharg Island. There was no independent confirmation of the attack, which an Iraqi military spokesman said was carried out in the war zone declared by his Government in the Kharg Island area. (Shipping sources in Bahrain said, according to Reuters, they had received unconfirmed reports that a supertanker of Liberian registry had been hit by a missile after taking on crude oil at Kharg Island.) The Iraqi spokesman said, according to the Baghdad radio, that Iraqi planes had made an accurate attack on “a large naval target” near the Kharg terminal. Earlier, sources in Bahrain who had talked with the captain of a tanker in the area quoted him as having reported that “all was quiet” near the terminal.
Lebanon has become a no man’s land where the new Government has not been able to meet normally because it has not been able to find a neutral, common ground where all of its members can feel safe. The number of people who identify themselves as “Lebanese” — as opposed to members of a religious sect — is becoming smaller and smaller.
An Israeli military inquiry into the deaths of two Arab bus hijackers identified three security officers as being among those who beat the hijackers after their capture April 12, a political magazine reported. Koteret Rashit, a leftist weekly, said each of the three men belongs to a different branch of the military. The Defense Ministry has acknowledged that the two hijackers were beaten to death after their capture. Israeli political sources, meanwhile, said that a senior military officer also is suspected of involvement in the killings.
Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek criticized the Israeli government’s efforts to build new housing developments in the occupied West Bank just outside the city. Kollek said that curbing Arab growth and increasing the Jewish population would weaken the city by drawing away young Israelis needed for Jerusalem’s future development. A settlements spokesman said the government plans to boost the Jewish population within 18 miles of Jerusalem to 710,000 in the next 25 years from the current 330,000. Arab population growth would be limited to 160,000 above the current 309,000.
Striking English coal miners clashed for a second day with the police at the gates of a coke plant outside Sheffield. Twenty-three pickets and policemen were injured as the strikers tried unsuccessfully to prevent truck convoys from leaving the plant. The miners have been on a national strike for 12 weeks.
The leader of Britain’s striking coal miners was arrested, and angry miners stormed the National Coal Board in London as a violent 12-week-old industrial confrontation turned increasingly bitter. Arthur Scargill, avowed Marxist president of the National Union of Mineworkers, was arrested as he directed pickets trying to block coke shipments used in steel production from leaving a plant near Sheffield. Twenty minutes later, about 40 miners burst into the National Coal Board headquarters and occupied an office for four hours. Scargill, charged with obstructing a highway, was later freed on bail.
A West German court ruled that punitive lockouts by employers are illegal in Hesse state, dealing companies a setback in the intensifying labor strife over union demands for a 35-hour workweek. The ruling by a court in Frankfurt came after employers in Hesse had locked out more than 26,000 metalworkers in 16 shops. In all, more than 350,000 employees have been idled by strikes, “forced vacations” and lockouts by employers, and the West German auto industry has been brought to a virtual standstill.
Sikh extremists killed 12 people in the worst wave of ethnic violence in two weeks in northern Punjab state. More than 250 people have died so far this year in a campaign by Sikhs for religious and political concessions from the Indian government. The Press Trust of India news agency said that among the new victims were two members of the paramilitary security force. Sikh activists announced plans to block the flow of grain and water to neighboring states. Sikhs have been agitating for greater political and religious autonomy for their religion and for Punjab, the only region of India in which Sikhs are a majority. Akali Dal, the main Sikh political party, said it was organizing a boycott of grain, water and power supplies from Punjab to neighboring states this weekend.
Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang of China called on the United States and the Soviet Union today to stop deploying nuclear weapons and to return to serious arms talks. Mr. Zhao, who was starting a visit to six Western European nations, also suggested that an international conference be held to discuss ways in which countries could reduce their nuclear stockpiles. Addressing a session of both the French National Assembly and the Senate after talks with President Francois Mitterrand, Mr. Zhao said the global rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union had plunged the world into permanent unrest. He urged that “the people of different countries take their own destiny in hand, throw themselves into action, reinforce their solidarity and coordinate their efforts to press the superpowers to end their dangerous arms race.” Mr. Zhao said China had a limited number of nuclear weapons for self-defense. He is visiting France, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Italy.
A unity move by anti-Sandinistas was reported by an organization based in Costa Rica. The group said its members had voted to form an alliance with Honduran-based rebels to help strengthen operations against the Nicaraguan Government.
Bomb explodes in rebel leader Edén Pastora’s headquarters in Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan rebel commander, Eden Pastora Gomez, was seriously wounded in a bomb attack Wednesday that killed three Costa Rican journalists and wounded 20 people, including foreign journalists, a Costa Rican radio reported. Radio Reloj quoted Edmundo Solano, director of Public Security, as having said that a bomb was thrown at Mr. Pastora and a group of journalists near a hamlet called Penta, in southern Nicaragua less than a mile east of San Carlos. Mr. Solano told Radio Reloj, a commercial radio station here, that the bomb seriously wounded Mr. Pastora, who commands the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance, or ARDE, a rebel army based in Costa Rica that is fighting Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista Government.
Hundreds of supporters of Panamanian opposition candidate Arnulfo Arias fought with police, blocked Panama City’s main avenue and set fire to at least two vehicles to protest the election of government candidate Nicolas Ardito Barletta as president. Witnesses said several people were injured, but no details were available. The demonstration broke out shortly after a morning ceremony in which Barletta was given a document certifying that he has become the president-elect. He is to be inaugurated October 11.
Army troops patrolled Cap-Haitien, Haiti’s second-largest city, after quelling a riot in which at least two people were reported killed. Soldiers said they fired into the air to stop a mob from storming a food warehouse run by CARE, the international volunteer agency based in New York. Irregularities in distributing the food, which was to be donated to the poor, reportedly prompted the riots. Last week, a similar disturbance occurred in the city of Gonaives, 60 miles southwest of Cap-Haitien.
A plot to overthrow the Government of Upper Volta was foiled by the arrest of a dozen soldiers, Agence France-Presse reported today. The news agency said the arrests were made Sunday, the day before the coup was scheduled to be carried out. In a report from Ouagadougou, the capital of the landlocked West African nation of more than 6 million people, the agency said government sources confirmed only that a coup attempt had been scheduled for May 28. The sources gave no details, the agency said.
More than 1,000 South African students held a demonstration today on the campus of the University of the Witwatersrand, a major university where most of the students are white, to support black students campaigning for equal education. About half of the protesters were white and half of them black. Black high school and university students were also involved in scattered boycotts and school closings around the country. A chronic complaint among blacks is that the Government spends less on educating them than on whites.
President Reagan stressed peace in delivering the commencement address at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Mr. Reagan urged the graduates to let their determination to deter a war and preserve peace “override all other considerations.”
“While you must know better than those before you how to fight a war, you must also know better than those before you how to deter a war, how to preserve the peace,” the President said in delivering the academy’s commencement address at Falcon Stadium.
Mr. Reagan offered a gentle exhortation to the class of 1984 to realize that they were more than “air warriors” and that “America’s future will be determined by your dreams and your vision.”
“You understand the horrors of war, and you know that peace with freedom is the highest aspiration of our time,” he told the cadets in a ceremony that included a flyover by stunt aircraft and the graduates’ tossing their white dress hats into the air.
President Reagan continues to lead both Walter F. Mondale and Senator Gary Hart among potential voters, according to the latest Gallup Poll. Interviews made May 18-20 with 960 registered voters showed Mr. Reagan was the choice of 52 percent to 43 percent for Mr. Mondale. In a match with Mr. Hart, the tally was 50 percent for the President and 44 percent for the Democratic Senator from Colorado. A Gallup survey earlier this month showed Mr. Reagan ahead of Mr. Mondale by 50 percent to 46 percent and leading Mr. Hart by 49 percent to 45 percent.
Strategists for Walter F. Mondale and Gary Hart have singled out Hispanic and Jewish voters in the Los Angeles area as critical swing constituencies in California’s Democratic Presidential primary next Tuesday, according to officials of both campaigns. Mr. Mondale and Senator Hart returned to California from New Jersey, the site of another critical primary Tuesday.
The House passed sweeping new rules designed to broaden the competition for the manufacture of military spare parts and preclude the defense industry from charging exorbitant prices for common tools and other items. The critical 324-75 vote came on an amendment proposed by Rep. Berkley Bedell (D-Iowa). It would allow any manufacturer-rather than just those on the Pentagon’s “qualified suppliers” list-to sell replacement parts, and would require those sellers to offer prices comparable to commercial rates, when applicable. Bedell’s proposal was fiercely opposed by senior members of the Armed Services Committee.
Two congressmen introduced a bill to eliminate restrictions on federal abortion payments to an. estimated 43 million Medicaid recipients, federal employees, Peace Corps volunteers and American Indians. Reps. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento) and Bill Green (R-New York) said that chances of passing the bill are slim, but they intend to use the measure to educate the public and pressure other members of Congress.
The House approved $58.4 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and 17 other agencies, including $3.7 billion more than President Reagan requested for housing for the poor. The bill passed 282 to 110 and was sent to the Senate. It includes $14 billion for HUD, $4.4 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency, $555 million for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, $25.8 billion for the Veterans Administration and $7.5 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, $64 million of which is to study a manned space station.
The American trade deficit soared in April by more than 18 percent, to $12.2 billion, the fourth successive monthly record, the Commerce Department reported. Imports, driven by the expanding economy and the continued exceptional strength of the dollar, rose 6.1 percent while exports fell 1.1 percent from March levels.
A land reform program was upheld by the Supreme Court, which ruled, 8 to 0, that a state may use its power of eminent domain to break up large estates and transfer land ownership to the estates’ tenants. The decision overturned a ruling last year by a federal appeals court that criticized Hawaii’s Land Reform Act of 1967 as “majoritarian tyranny” and thus unconstitutional.
New rules for I.R.S. agents were issued by the Government. Under the guidelines for undercover operations, the Internal Revenue Service has forbidden agents to pose as lawyers, doctors, clergymen or reporters unless they obtain specific approval from top officials in Washington.
A nearly total annular solar eclipse that transformed midday into an eerie twilight and briefly framed the black shadow of the Moon in a spectacular necklace of light was viewed from Louisiana to North Carolina.
A federal appeals court in Chicago overturned a 1982 jury award of $18 million against United Airlines for alleged age discrimination against 112 pilots and flight engineers. The court said United is entitled to a new trial because U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur gave erroneous instructions to the jury. The decision is the latest episode in a five-year battle by pilots seeking to work past age 60, a limit enforced by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Officials in Madison County, Kentucky voted unanimously to demand a congressional investigation of the Army’s handling of deadly nerve gas stored at the nearby Blue Grass Army Depot. More than 150 persons jammed a courtroom in Richmond to express their anger at the presence of the gas and to urge that Congress force the Army to disclose all of the details. Military officials want to build a $42-million incinerator to dispose of an estimated 77,000 obsolete M-55 rockets equipped with lethal nerve gas. But residents of Richmond, Berea and other communities remember past leaks of toxic gas from the munitions facility and fear the burning will be unsafe.
Frank P. Balistrieri, despite his denials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s description of him as chief of organized crime in Milwaukee, was sentenced Tuesday to 13 years in Federal prison on extortion and bookmaking charges. “The first time I heard the word ‘Mafia’ was when I read it in the newspapers,” he told Judge Terence T. Evans before being sentenced. His convictions are the products of a “conspiracy between the press and the Government,” he said as he accused news media of “inflaming and poisoning the community against me.”
An immigration judge has denied political asylum for John Demjanjuk, accused of being a former Nazi death camp guard, and he faces deportation, an official said Tuesday. The official, Russell Ezolt, chief legal officer for the Immigration and Naturalization Service here, said he had received the opinion from Immigration Judge Adolph Angelilli of Detroit. According to Mr. Demjanjuk’s attorney, Mark J. O’Connor of Buffalo, New York, the ruling gives Mr. Demjanjuk 30 days to leave the country on his own. If he fails to do so, he will be deported, according to the decision. The ruling denied Mr. Demjanjuk’s requests for political asylum and a suspension of deportation, making him deportable, Mr. Ezolt said.
An experimental vaccine against chicken pox, one of the few remaining childhood diseases against which children are not routinely immunized, has been found to be effective and safe in tests on nearly 1,000 children, Pennsylvania researchers reported. “I do foresee this being used on all children as a routine immunization,” said Dr. Robert E. Weibel, the University of Pennsylvania pediatrician who headed the study. But additional studies will be needed to confirm the new vaccine’s long-term risks and benefits before it is ready for widespread use, he said.
A storm that has doused the Northeast with half a foot of rain in three days caused flooding that blocked highways and forced sporadic evacuations in several states. For some areas, it has been the wettest May on record. Seventeen persons have died in flood-related accidents as the storm moved east across the nation — 13 in Tulsa, Oklahoma; one in North Carolina; two in upstate New York and one in western Massachusetts.
28th European Cup: Liverpool beats Roma (1–1, 4–2 on penalties) at Rome.
The National League suspends Mario Soto for 5 days for the Reds-Cubs fight on May 27th.
Kirk Gibson’s 9th inning homer, off Steve McCatty, gives the Tigers a 2–1 squeaker over the A’s. Reliever Willie Hernandez is the winner.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1102.59 (+1.35).
Born:
Alexander Sulzer, German National Team and NHL defenseman (Olympics, 2006 [10th], 2010 [11th]; Nashville Predators, Florida Panthers,, Vancouver Canucks, Buffalo Bills), in Kaufbeuren, West Germany.
Frank Herrmann, MLB pitcher (Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies), in Rutherford, New Jersey.
Jordan Palmer, NFL quarterback (Cincinnati Bengals, Tennessee Titans), in Westlake Village, California.
History Diaries 