An Afghan guerrilla chief, Ahmad Shah Masood, who was rumored to have been captured, has returned to the Panjshir Valley and is directing operations against Soviet forces who overran it, Western diplomatic sources said today. The sources also reported a great deal of resistance activity in the Afghan capital of Kabul and nearby Paghman, and the continuing murder of Government supporters in Kabul, apparently the result of a feud among ruling Communist Party factions. Afghan rebel sources said Mr. Masood had left the Panjshir Valley before Soviet forces mounted a big offensive there in April.
King Hussein of Jordan and President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan held talks today with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia on the Persian Gulf war, according to Arab sources. They said the leaders had discussed plans for protecting Saudi Arabia against Iranian air attacks. The meeting took place in Jidda and was attended by Egypt’s Chief of Staff, Major General Mohammed Helmi, according to the Arab sources. The three visitors were making a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. Prince Sultan, the Saudi Defense Minister, was said to have attended some of the talks. Pakistan provides officers for the Saudi armed forces, particularly the navy, which could have an important role protecting tankers in the gulf. Jordan has military officers on duty with the Saudi forces and is believed to be offering pilots.
Two hijackers seized an Iranian airliner today and forced the pilot to fly to Qatar. They freed 142 people there and then, with three crewmen, flew to Egypt. It was the second Iranian plane to land in Egypt in two weeks. There was no information about the hijackers’ identities or demands. The Middle East News Agency quoted Government sources as saying that the hijackers had been refused asylum and that the plane had been refueled for departure.
A plan to improve Kuwait’s air defenses will be submitted to Congress this week, a Pentagon spokesman said today. The package will include radar equipment and communications gear to coordinate Kuwaiti air defenses with those of Saudi Arabia.
Common Market countries resolved a five-year-old budget dispute. Under a compromise reached by leaders of the 10 member countries, Britain would receive a rebate of about $800 million on its 1984 contribution to the Common Market treasury and $600 million for 1983. The dispute, over the size of Britain’s contribution to the joint Common Market treasury, was resolved when the leaders of the 10 member countries agreed to a compromise bringing the Government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher what British officials called a satisfactory share of community funds. But in Britain, Mrs. Thatcher’s political opponents, and critics within her own party, expressed dissatisfaction with the agreement. Both Mrs. Thatcher and President Francois Mitterrand of France, who had held the community’s rotating post of president for the past six months, praised the accord.
An arbitrator’s compromise proposal may be the key to ending a seven-week metalworkers’ strike that has paralyzed the West German auto industry and cost more than $1 billion in lost production. After a marathon 21-hour negotiating session, arbitrator Georg Leber announced a plan that would reduce the workweek from 40 hours to an average of 38.5 hours with no loss in pay, and he expressed optimism that both sides will accept it. The union initially demanded a 35-hour week.
A corruption scandal shook Bonn. Economics Minister Otto Lambsdorff, a central figure in West Germany’s center-right coalition, announced he had resigned because of the imminent confirmation of an indictment against him. He said Chancellor Helmut Kohl had accepted the resignation. In an abrupt announcement that caught even his Free Democratic Party by surprise, the 57-year-old minister said he had submitted his resignation after being informed by his lawyer that a Bonn court was about to confirm an indictment brought against him in November. Mr. Lambsdorff reiterated that he was innocent of the charges — accepting bribes from the giant Flick holding company for arranging tax waivers — but said that his need to defend himself prevented him from remaining in office.
Indian troops arrested more than 300 people in Bombay (Mumbai) after a new spate of rioting involving Hindus and Muslims. Security forces were deployed in six Bombay suburbs after militant Hindus set 27 taxis ablaze. At least 268 people died last month in Hindu-Muslim clashes in the western industrial city and in neighboring towns. In the Sikh city of Amritsar, authorities abruptly closed the Golden Temple, the Sikhs’ sacred shrine, a day after reopening it following the Indian army’s storming of the complex to root out extremist Sikh nationalists. There was speculation that officials feared they could not control the large crowds trying to enter.
The chairmen of the Senate and House Foreign Affairs committees introduced a joint resolution urging the President to instruct U.S. ambassadors to investigate and actively oppose the use of torture wherever it is practiced abroad. Under the non-binding resolution by Senator Charles H. Percy (R-Illinois) and Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D-Florida), U.S. ambassadors also would be asked to meet with human rights groups in their host nations and to report to the State Department. One-third of the world’s governments systematically use torture, officials of the human rights organization Amnesty International testified at the opening of Senate hearings. A leader of the Bahai faith also testified on the continuing persecution — including torture — of Bahais in Iran.
Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos expressed shock at what he called a growth of Communist rebellion on a key southern island. He warned that the situation that led to nationwide martial law in 1972 “may happen all over again if we don’t watch out.” Marcos did not directly threaten to reimpose martial law, but instead defended his emergency powers to legislate by decree and imprison without charges, which he retained after martial law was lifted in 1981. Marcos said that Mindanao Island “is in a state of anxiety (because) there are many towns and municipalities there that are under the control of subversives.”
Prime Minister Cesar Virata said today that it was wrong to rule out involvement by anyone in the government in the assassination of Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Mr. Virata, testifying before a board investigating the murder of the opposition leader last August, said he knew of no government figure who wanted Mr. Aquino killed. But he said that the possibility could not be ruled out. Even before the purported assassin, Rolando Galman, was identified, President Ferdinand E. Marcos had said the killing was a Communist plot and that no one in the military had anything to do with it.
The State Department today criticized Vietnam for publicly demanding acceptance of additional Vietnamese refugees, but said the United States was willing to take more. The State Department said that the United States was willing to increase its allocation of 1,000 a month. At the same time, it was critical of a statement made Monday in Hanoi, in which a Vietnamese official, Nguyễn Phi Tuyên, said the United States quota had created a backlog of 28,000 to 29,000 people who had Vietnamese exit visas but not United States entry visas.
The House of Representatives agreed with Senate action stripping $21 million in covert aid to Nicaraguan rebels from a catch-all money bill and sent the measure to President Reagan. The Senate had voted 88 to 1 Monday to end a battle over the covert aid funding that had held hostage for weeks a program of 100,000 summer jobs for youth and other social funding plans. The bill, a supplement to fiscal 1984 spending, also includes an undisputed $62 million in additional military aid for El Salvador.
Aid to Nicaraguan rebels will have to be temporarily phased out because of the Senate decision Monday against providing additional assistance this year, according to senior Reagan Administration officials. The officials said the Central Intelligence Agency, which has supported the rebels, was down to less than $100,000 of an original appropriation of $24 million for the insurgents for the current fiscal year. Rebel pressure on Nicaragua’s Sandinista Government has been a major component of Administration policy in Central America. If the rebel activities are sharply reduced, the officials said, the Administration will have to develop other ways to press Nicaragua to end its support for guerrillas in El Salvador and negotiate an end to tensions in the region.
Eden Pastora, the Nicaraguan rebel leader wounded in a bombing last month, and his Sandino Revolutionary Front have been expelled from the alliance of Nicaraguan rebels based in Costa Rica, a senior Costa Rican official said. Sources inside the umbrella Revolutionary Democratic Alliance said the group has been split for months over whether to join forces with the larger, better-financed Nicaraguan Democratic Force rebels based in Honduras and operating in northern Nicaragua. Pastora, known as Commander Zero, has opposed a linkup with the Honduran-based group because many of its leaders supported dictator Anastasio Somoza.
Guerrillas in Peru killed 45 peasants Monday in the Andean town of Paicca, government spokesmen said today. They called it was the biggest massacre by the rebels this year. Two hundred Shining Path guerrillas, some of them teen-agers, entered Paicca, 420 miles southeast of Lima, and killed the villagers, the officials said. Army troops in helicopters were sent to the area, but there were no reports of any arrests. The killings raised to 107 the number of fatalities since last Wednesday in the latest rebel offensive, which has been centered on the mountains around the city of Ayacucho, 350 miles southeast of here. Interior Minister Luis Percovich predicted that the rebel drive would continue next month. He said security forces lacked the resources to prevent all the expected rebel attacks.
The Marxist Government of Angola will not send a team to the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the country’s official press agency reported today. Although the agency, Angop, monitored here, made no mention of joining the Soviet boycott, the move seemed to be in line with other Moscow-influenced nations that have refused to participate in the Games. The announcement brings to 18 the number of nations that say they will stay away from the Games.
In a tense drama acted out in split seconds, engines of the space shuttle Discovery began ignition and then cut off abruptly today, forcing postponement of the STS-41-D mission for several days or possibly several weeks. Engines of the spaceship Discovery began ignition and then cut off abruptly when computers detected an apparent valve failure in one of the main engines. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it was not known when a new launching date could be set for the spaceship’s maiden flight. An investigation was under way to determine the exact cause of the engine shutdown, what repairs might be necessary and what effect the postponement could have on future shuttle missions. The six-member crew, five astronauts and a working passenger from industry, rode out their brush with potential disaster unharmed.
The engine shutdown came four seconds before the liftoff time, scheduled for 8:43 AM, Eastern daylight time. It was only the second time that an American manned spacecraft had come so close to liftoff, the suspenseful moment after ignition, and not gone anywhere. It had never happened to one of the winged shuttles. A puff of smoke and vapor issued from beneath the spaceship as the first of the three main engines came to life on electronic cue. Milliseconds later, the second engine ignited. Then the first engine with the questionable valve shut down prematurely without achieving ignition, and sensing that, the second engine cut off according to its preprogrammed instructions. The third engine never had time to ignite.
While evacuating the shuttle 20 minutes later, the crew was doused with water from the pad deluge system, which was activated due to a hydrogen fire on the launch pad caused by the free hydrogen (fuel) that had collected around the engine nozzles following the shutdown and engine anomaly. Because the fire was invisible to humans, had the astronauts used the normal emergency escape procedure across the service arm to the slidewire escape baskets, they would have run into the fire. Changes to procedures resulting from the abort included more practicing of “safing” the orbiter following aborts at various points, the use of the fire suppression system in all pad aborts, and the testing of the slidewire escape system with a real person (Charles F. Bolden Jr.). It emerged that launch controllers were reluctant to order the crew to evacuate during the STS-41-D abort, as the slidewire had not been ridden by a human. Examination of telemetry data indicated that the engine malfunction had been caused by a stuck valve that prevented proper flow of LOX into the combustion chamber.
Legislation against drunken driving was approved by the Senate. By a vote of 81 to 16, the senators passed a measure that would both penalize states that failed to enact a minimum drinking age of 21 and reward those states that enacted mandatory sentences for drunken drivers.
President Reagan participates in a ceremony to present the Medal of Freedom posthumously to the late Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Washington).
President Reagan participates in a ceremony in recognition of Senior Citizen Volunteers.
Walter F. Mondale and Gary Hart emerged from a two-hour meeting in Manhattan and declared that their conflicts were largely resolved and that they were united, as Mr. Hart put it, by a “profound fear of a second Reagan term.”
A curb on charities was overturned by the Supreme Court. Voting 5 to 4, the Court ruled that state-imposed limits on the amount of money that charities may spend on fund-raising violate the charities’ constitutional right of free speech. About half the states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, have similar laws to combat fraud.
Jurors at John Z. DeLorean’s trial on drug charges said they had received unsolicited copies of a Congressional report that was highly critical of undercover investigations by the FBI. After a closed-door meeting with lawyers for both sides, the presiding judge resumed the trial.
The National Transportation Safety Board blamed deficiencies in Connecticut’s bridge inspection and maintenance system for last year’s collapse of the Mianus River Bridge. The disaster occurred June 28, 1983, when a 100-foot section of the Interstate 95 bridge collapsed into the Mianus River in Greenwich. Three persons died and three others were injured when two trailer trucks and two cars plunged into the river. The board agreed that the probable cause of the accident was the undetected displacement of a pin and hanger suspension assembly on the bridge, prompted “by corrosion-induced forces due to deficiencies in the state of Connecticut’s bridge safety inspection and bridge maintenance programs.”
The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for federal employees to secretly tape-record telephone calls. The measure, which is opposed by the Reagan Administration, and a similar proposal being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee were introduced earlier this year after it was disclosed that U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Z. Wick had engaged in such taping. The House bill, which carries exemptions for law enforcement personnel, would subject violators to a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
The Roman Catholic Church’s condemnation of nuclear war does not rule out all uses of nuclear weapons, Archbishop John O’Connor of New York and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago said. “Could a nuclear weapon ever be used? I think we could say if the conditions of discrimination and proportionality can be met, I say yes,” O’Connor told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Two Detroit men who beat a Chinese-American to death with a baseball bat were driven by “anger, adrenaline, and stupidity” — but not by racism, their defense lawyers argued as a jury began deliberations. Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, who received probation sentences earlier on state charges of manslaughter in the death of Vincent Chin, 25, of Oak Park, face life in prison on charges of violating the civil rights of Chin, who died June 23, 1982, of head injuries suffered during a scuffle in a nightclub. Ebens, 44, and Nitz, 25, his stepson, directed racial epithets at Chin and blamed unemployment in the U.S. auto industry on Japanese imports in the mistaken belief that Chin was Japanese, a federal prosecutor said. S. Theodore Merritt, a government prosecutor in the case, told the jury in closing arguments today that the beating was “a lynching with a bat instead of a rope.”
Samuel Brown, the last defendant in the bloody Brink’s armored car robbery that uncovered a criminal coalition of radical groups, was sentenced in White Plains, New York, to 75 years to life in prison. The court upheld his murder-robbery conviction and then sentenced him to the maximum penalty in the $1.6-million holdup and the murders of a Brink’s guard and two police officers.
A widow who won an $870,000 suit against police in Ware, Massachusetts, contending that they freed a drunken driver minutes before he killed her husband and daughter in a 1978 accident, pleaded no contest to drunken driving. Debbie L. Irwin, who has resigned as a local director of the national organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving, was fined $200, placed on probation for a year and had her driver’s license suspended for 30 days. Irwin, 25, has insisted that her May 27 arrest was “set up” by police seeking revenge for her successful lawsuit.
Vermont Governor Richard A. Snelling said today that his approval of a roundup of children living in a church commune was the toughest decision he ever had to make in public office, but he defended the action. “The decision I made last Thursday was the most difficult I’ve made in my public life,” he said at a news conference. “It was a troublesome decision for a number of reasons, but nonetheless, it was decision which I feel was correct and appropriate.” Governor Snelling’s comments came as state officials continued their defense of Friday’s roundup at the Northeast Kingdom Community Church in Island Pond, Vermont. Mr. Snelling stressed today that he did not consider the action at dawn “a raid.” He referred to it as “asking a judge for permission to take children from their homes and take them before another judge.”
A renewal of the Clean Water Act was approved by the House after two years of discussion and delay. The legislation, which also amended the statute, was adopted unanimously by voice vote.
Modified aid for buyers of used cars was proposed by the staff of the Federal Trade Commission. The proposals suggest that buyers have independent mechanics examine the cars, that oral promises of dealers not be relied upon and that the terms of any warranty be written.
Agriculture officials today identified the 20 fruit fly larvae found this week in Miami as Caribbean, not Mediterranean, flies and said the insect was no threat to Florida citrus growing. Crews plucked and sliced open 125 pounds of fruit in backyard trees in a 40-acre zone in Little Havana, searching for larvae of the Mediterranean fruit fly. The pest could devastate Florida’s $1 billion citrus industry. Workers discovered 20 larvae and took the infested fruit to the Florida Department of Agriculture laboratory in Miami, where the chief entomologist, Harold Denmark, identified them as the Caribbean variety. Mr. Denmark said the Caribbean fly came to Florida in 1965 and infested 100 different fruits, including peaches, plums and apricots. He said, however, it did not prefer citrus and was not a threat to commercial citrus growers in Florida.
An advance against liver cancer was announced by scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital. They said they had developed a rapid, highly sensitive screening test that might have an important impact on the disease throughout the world.
Lance Parrish hit his 14th home run with two out in the top of the 10th at New York to give the Detroit Tigers the 9–7 victory over the Yankees that enabled them to extend their lead in the East to double figures. Although they have split the two games at New York, the Tigers have picked up 1½ games on Toronto and a game on Baltimore, which is now 13½ out. Parrish hit his home run after a walk to Darrell Evans, and it gave Willie Hernandez his third victory. Hernandez allowed only one hit in 2⅔ innings.
The Minnesota Twins brought young Kirby Puckett up from Toledo May 7, and the 23-year-old center fielder has been burning up the league. Puckett, a leadoff man who seldom walks, had four hits, scored three runs and drove in another at Cleveland to enable the Twins to beat the Indians, 8–3, and stay one game back of the Angels in the West. The youngster has walked only three times in 177 trips to the plate. However, he has 58 hits, and his .333 average is third in the league.
Pitcher Mark Langston pitched a five-hitter and struck out nine at Chicago in his first major league shutout, as the Seattle Mariners blanked the Chicago White Sox, 5–0.
Pirates Jason Thompson hits a pair of home runs in each game of a doubleheader split with the Cubs. The Pirates take the opener, 9–0 behind Rick Rhoden’s 4-hitter, and lose the nightcap, 9–8.
Ex-Dodger Steve Garvey had three of the 14 hits as the San Diego Padres pounded Los Angeles, 5–0. Ed Whitson got the win for the Padres, and reliever Goose Gossage slammed the door on an 8th-inning Dodger rally.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1122.79 (-7.73).
Born:
Aubrey Plaza, American actress and comedian (“Parks and Recreation”), in Wilmington, Delaware.
Deron Williams, NBA point guard (NBA All-Star, 2010-2012; Utah Jazz, New Jersey-Brooklyn Nets, Dallas Mavericks, Cleveland Cavaliers), in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
J. J. Barea, Puerto Rican NBA point guard and shooting guard (NBA Champions-Dallas, 2011; Dallas Mavericks, Minnesota Timberwolves), in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
Raymond Felton, NBA point guard and shooting guard (Charlotte Hornets, New York Knicks, Denver Nuggets, Portland Trailblazers, Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder), in Marion, South Carolina.
Cody McLeod, Canadian NHL left wing (Colorado Avalanche, Nashville Predators, New York Rangers), in Binscarth, Manitoba, Canada.
Luis Hernández, Venezuelan MLB shortstop, second baseman, and third baseman (Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals, New York Mets, Texas Rangers), in Quibor, Venezuela.
Elijah Dukes, MLB outfielder (Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Washington Nationals), in Homestead, Florida.
Died:
Russ Savakus, American jazz, folk, and rock session bassist and violinist, dies in a car crash.
History Diaries 