President Reagan was conciliatory in speaking about East-West relations after conferring at the White House with the NATO foreign ministers. Mr. Reagan said the NATO allies recognized there was “no more important consideration than the development of a better working relationship with the Soviet Union.” The President spoke after he had conferred at the White House with the NATO foreign ministers here for the 35th anniversary meeting of the alliance, and as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization issued a “Washington Statement on East-West Relations.”
“It is our hope that the Soviet Union will soon return to the negotiating table,” Reagan said. “Our commitment to dialogue and arms reduction is firm and unshaken.” He said that if the Soviet Union decides to return to the negotiations on limiting medium-range missiles in Europe and strategic arms, “we’ll meet them half-way.’
Iraq warned that its forces would destroy Iran’s oil export terminal at Kharg Island if Iran began a new offensive and continued to reject a peaceful end of the Persian Gulf war. The Iraqi warning came in a front- page article in Al Thawra, the newspaper of the ruling Baath Party. It appeared on the eve of the beginning of Ramadan, the Moslem holy month of prayer and fasting, which diplomats say may be marked by Iran with the start of its long-awaited offensive against Basra. Hours later, an Iraqi military spokesman said Iraqi planes had bombed an Iranian oil refinery at Tabriz and a pumping station near Khurramabad.
Lebanon’s “lost generation” is composed of the young people who have grown up in the last nine years, years of constant civil warfare. The war blew away their adolescence before they knew it was gone. A student at the American University of Beirut, asked her age, replied softly and sadly, “100 years old.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Rashid Karami asked Parliament for permission to rule by decree for nine months, giving his month-old government a free hand to impose wide-ranging reforms. In his first appearance before Parliament, Karami said, “We intend to reform the electoral law, set up a constitutional court to try civil servants, set up a supreme defense council, free the Lebanese army from internal struggles and dissolve the various militias.” He added. “But all we intend doing depends on security, ending the war.”
Lech Walesa and 40 other members of Solidarity’s former national leadership announced that they will not vote in Polish local elections June 17, but they stopped short of calling for a boycott. In a letter to the state election board, the leaders of the outlawed union said: “The elections condone the present state of affairs, which features the use of oppressive laws, police brutality, jailing people for their political views and departure from the principle of pluralism in trade unions.” A boycott of Poland’s first nationwide balloting in four years was urged by Solidarity’s underground wing.
The mother of a young Solidarity supporter who was beaten to death in police custody accused Communist authorities today of covering up police involvement in the slaying. The mother, Barbara Sadowska, made the charge as the trial began for two policemen, two ambulance attendants and two physicians who are accused in death in May 1983 of her son, Gregorz Przemyk, 19 years old, who had been arrested for public drunkenness. “The entire nation knows that policemen beat people at police stations,” Mrs. Sadowska said in a letter to the court. She sat through the proceedings today. Janusz Jankowski, head of the three- judge trial panel, accepted the letter but did not read it aloud. A copy of the letter was obtained from unidentified sources.
West European justice ministers supported a proposal by Britain for action against foreign diplomats who abuse their diplomatic immunity and take part in terrorist activities in host countries. The proposal was included in a general resolution calling for cooperation against terrorism and organized crime that was approved by the ministers as they ended a conference in Madrid. Their action followed the incident last month in which shots from the Libyan Embassy in London killed a policewoman and wounded 12 Libyan demonstrators.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany called today for a “United States of Europe,” saying that the Continent meant more than just a free trade zone. He was speaking here at a ceremony in which President Karl Carstens was given the city’s Charlemagne Prize for services to European unity. “Europe is more and must be more than a free trade zone,” Mr. Kohl said. “Our aim remains the political unity of the people of Europe in freedom. We want to move now to building a United States of Europe.”
President Reagan faces calculated snubs and hostile demonstrations, as well as fonder greetings, during his three-day visit to Ireland beginning Friday. His policies in Central America, an area where Irish priests have worked in missions, are one cause of antipathy in this traditionally pro-American country. In addition, he is seen by many people as too bellicose in his attitudes toward the Soviet Union. Membership in the European Economic Community has tended to bring Irish political opinion into line with the continental mainstream. Whereas Mr. Reagan might once have been universally welcomed because of his Irish roots, he is now viewed here much as he is viewed in Amsterdam.
At least two people were killed today in the northern state of Punjab as security forces braced for a fresh burst of Sikh extremist violence in a grain blockade this weekend. The Press Trust of India reported that a young woman was shot dead and her husband seriously wounded when gunmen attacked them in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district. The news agency also said a Sikh temple guard was shot dead by paramilitary troops when he attacked them with a spear near the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. In the southwestern state of Maharashtra, the police said the death toll in 12 days of Hindu-Muslim riots had risen to 258 as several people died of injuries, mostly stabbing wounds, sustained in street battles in Bombay and nearby industrial towns. One person was killed and 50 people were injured in the northern Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir as students protesting against the Maharashtra riots fought with the police.
Costa Rica took into custody a Nicaraguan rebel leader wounded Wednesday night in a bomb attack. The Government’s move was apparently designed to stress its official neutrality in Central American conflicts. Five people, including a United States journalist, were killed and 27 were wounded when a bomb exploded during a news conference being given by the insurgent leader, Eden Pastora Gomez.
The mines deployed recently against shipping in Nicaraguan harbors were constructed by the CIA with the help of a United States Navy laboratory, according to Reagan Administration officials. In an interview four days ago, President Reagan said the mines were “homemade.”
The Pentagon should resist escalating and Americanizing the Salvadoran civil war, and instead should keep a low U.S. profile while training and supplying the Salvadoran army, a panel of counterinsurgency experts selected by the Defense Department urged. The panel, headed by retired Major General John K. Singlaub, warned against sending sophisticated military hardware, bombs, napalm or U.S. combat troops.
One of Mexico’s most prominent journalists, political columnist Manuel Buendia, was shot to death as he left his office in Mexico City. Attending a wake for Buendia, President Miguel de la Madrid promised a thorough investigation. The 58-year-old journalist, whose column appeared on the front page of Excelsior, Mexico’s most prestigious newspaper, was shot in the back at close range at least three times. Buendia’s columns, often reflecting official thinking, included attacks on prominent Mexican business leaders and criticism of the Roman Catholic Church.
Haiti’s president, Jean-Claude Duvalier, fired a key Cabinet minister in the wake of food riots that left at least three people dead. A communique, signed by Duvalier, said Alix Clines was dismissed as secretary for public works and replaced by Fritz Benajmin. Three other ministers also were fired. Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince said Washington has approved another $21 million in food aid for Haiti as Haitian soldiers continued patrols in Cap Haiten, the day after a mob stormed a relief agency food warehouse.
Bolivia, saying it has been robbed of part of its history, announced today that it would try to stop the last diaries of the revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevara from being auctioned in London. Defense Minister Manuel Cardenas told reporters that Bolivia wanted the diaries back and would ask the British Government to stop the sale, which is to take place at Sotheby’s on July 16. Mr. Cardenas said the diaries disappeared from the vault of Bolivia’s intelligence agency. A spokesman for Sotheby’s denied that the diaries had been stolen. He said Sotheby’s was satisfied that the diaries’ owner, who is non-British, had valid legal right to sell them. Che Guevara, once Fidel Castro’s closest assistant, was killed by Bolivian troops in 1967 after trying to lead an insurrection there that he wanted to become “another Vietnam.”
A Nigerian military tribunal imposed the first sentence in the country’s crackdown on corruption. ordering Bisi Onabanjo, former governor of Ogun state, imprisoned for 22 years for taking a $3.7-million kickback. The money came from a $37-million contract with a French firm to build a 19-story office building for an insurance company owned by three Nigerian states. The governors of the other two states were acquitted. About 500 former officials face trial by the military government that overthrew President Shehu Shagari on December 31.
Arms control advocates won two victories as the House limited the deployment of sea-based nuclear cruise missiles and imposed additional conditions on spending for the land-based MX missile. The votes came on amendments to the proposed $208 billion military spending bill.
President Reagan meets with the Board of Trustees of the National 4-H Council.
President Reagan participates in a ceremony to announce the nomination of Martha R. Seger to be a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
All smoking would be banned on domestic commercial flights of less than two hours under a tentative decision taken by the Civil Aeronautics Board. However, hours later, the C.A.B. chairman, C. Dan McKinnon, said that he had become convinced of the impracticality of the prohibition and that it would be revoked.
Democratic Presidential aspirants girded for a final weekend battle before California’s primary Tuesday as the Rev. Jesse Jackson spurned a new party unity effort with bitter language. Mr. Jackson rejected a request that he attend a fund-raising event in Los Angeles for former Senator George McGovern.
A charge against Jesse Jackson was made by Nathan Perlmutter, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Mr. Perlmutter said that statements made by Mr. Jackson, both before and since he declared himself a Presidential candidate, “render the self-portrait of an anti-Semite.”
Walter F. Mondale needs 320 more convention delegates at best to win the Democratic Presidential nomination, according to a count by The New York Times with five days to go before the last big group of delegates are selected Tuesday.
The Internal Revenue Service has adopted guidelines that let agents pose as reporters, clergymen, lawyers and doctors-but only in rare cases with permission from Washington headquarters, the agency said. Investigators can attempt to gain the confidence of persons they are investigating through such masquerades “only when the field can demonstrate an extremely compelling need to do it and then there is severe doubt that we would approve it,” spokesman Larry Batdorf said. He said the guidelines, in use since October, apply only to criminal investigations.
CIA Director William J. Casey and his wife bought at least $1 million in stocks and bonds last year and sold a similar amount in the nine months before Casey established a blind trust for his holdings, according to his financial disclosure statement. The report showed that Casey continued trading in stocks and securities right up to October 7, when the bulk of his multi-million-dollar holdings were put in a blind trust beyond his control. In the two weeks before the trust was set up, Casey reported between $690,000 and $1.6 million in transactions.
Two homemade bombs baited with $1 bills were found in downtown Milwaukee. Both exploded, one on purpose and the other causing minor injuries to a city worker. Police said one device bore a note like those found earlier with 13 bombs in three other Wisconsin and Minnesota cities. A similar unexploded pipe bomb was found later in Chicago. The Milwaukee employee helping clean the grounds of the Milwaukee Civic Center Plaza was injured when she picked up one of the devices. The second Milwaukee bomb was safely detonated by police.
Federal undercover agents have arrested 13 persons who allegedly plotted to muster and arm a small army to overthrow Haiti’s President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier, U.S. Attorney John Volz said in New Orleans. Volz said the suspects, arrested in Slidell, Louisiana, spent more than $100,000 and attempted to set up a training base on a Mississippi River island 200 miles north of New Orleans where 150 rebels were to be trained. One group leader told federal agents another base was being assembled in New York state.
Two Vietnam veterans pleaded guilty today to the firebombing of a Buddhist temple on New Year’s Eve to call attention to stress that they say veterans suffer from the war. Roland Voudren, 33 years old, and Donald Taylor, 37, pleaded guilty in Franklin Superior Court to charges of burning a building and destroying a church. The offenses carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, but their lawyer and the prosecutor urged that the two instead receive psychiatric counseling over three years of probation.
Twenty- nine people have been indicted for illegally smuggling thousands of Yugoslavs into the United States in what a federal prosecutor said today might have been the biggest scheme ever to bring aliens from outside the Western Hemisphere into the country. About 175 Yugoslavs a month were smuggled into the United States through Mexico for $3,000 to $5,000 each, netting the smugglers as much as $10.5 million annually, federal officials said. “It is the largest smuggling ring in the United States operating from outside the Western Hemisphere” that the authorities are aware of, Dan K. Webb, United States Attorney, said.”
The space agency announced that it is postponing until 1985 two shuttle flights — the second flight of Spacelab and the launching of a satellite that had been scheduled for later this year. The decision means there will be only seven flights in 1984, down from the 20 originally planned. The postponements are caused by continuing problems with an upper-stage rocket that carries satellites from the shuttle to higher orbit and by a general slippage in the shuttle schedule, a spokesman for National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.
A gain against liver disease was reported by a group of scientists. They said that the first experimental vaccine produced through gene-splicing methods had given healthy adults immunity to hepatitis B virus, a major cause of liver disease.
Crime victims will have a voice in parole decisions affecting Federal prisoners convicted of victimizing them, under new rules announced by the United States Parole Commission. Crime victims have never previously had a voice in Federal parole decision-making.
Three workers at a fundamentalist Christian school appeared in circuit court in Walterboro, South Carolina, on kidnapping charges stemming from alleged abuse of students, including accusations that the youths were beaten and kept in padlocked cells. The three, including the superintendent and the principal of the New Bethany School for Boys, were arrested, and the 57 students were taken into protective custody.
A town seal with “Christianity” printed on it has become an emotional issue in Milledgeville, Georgia. Kenneth S. Saladin, a college biology professor who describes himself as a humanist and atheist, has taken the town to Federal court, hoping to show that the seal is unconstitutional. A ruling is expected to be issued soon.
A common eland antelope acting as a “surrogate mother” gave birth to a baby of the rare bongo antelope species after an embryo transplant from pregnant bongos at the Los Angeles Zoo, Cincinnati Zoo officials said. The birth is the first to occur in a rare animal species as the result of such a procedure, said zoo spokeswoman Carleen Kearns. The bongo baby and eland mother were reported doing well.
The U.S. performs a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site.
57th National Spelling Bee: A young computer expert, 13-year-old Daniel Greenblatt of Sterling, Virginia, won the 57th annual National Spelling Bee today when he correctly spelled “luge,” a racing sled. Daniel beat Amy McWhirter, 13, of St. Joseph, Michigan, who failed to spell “towhee,” a small North American sparrow. She spelled it “tohee.” Daniel got it right, and took the prize over 151 finalists by spelling luge.
In Game 2 of the NBA Finals, the Lakers led 113–111 with 18 seconds left when Gerald Henderson stole a James Worthy pass to score a game tying layup. The Lakers then inbounded the ball and Magic Johnson inexplicably dribbled the clock out during regulation time. The Celtics eventually prevailed in overtime 124–121, thanks to Scott Wedman’s game-winning shot from the baseline with 14 ticks left.
Mario Soto is suspended for 5 days by National League president Chub Feeney for his role in a 32-minute melee that marred the Reds-Cubs game on May 27th. After shoving third base umpire Steve Ripley, who had signaled that Ron Cey’s long fly ball was a 3-run home run (it was later ruled foul), a bat-wielding Soto then tried to attack a park vendor who had thrown a bag of ice at him. Soto will be suspended again for 5 more days later in the season for his June 16th fight with Claudell Washington.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1104.85 (+2.26).
Born:
Nate Robinson, NBA point guard (first 3-time slam dunk champion; New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Oklahoma City Thunder, Golden State Warriors, Chicago Bulls, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, New Orleans Pelicans), in Seattle, Washington.
Marcus Vinicius, Brazilian NBA small forward (New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets), in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Andrew Bailey, MLB pitcher (All-Star, 2009, 2010; Oakland A’s, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Angels), in Voorhees, New Jersey.
Yael Grobglas, French-Israeli actress (“Jane the Virgin”), in Paris, France.
History Diaries 