Iran has built up its tank forces to “significant levels” along the war front with Iraq near the key Iraqi city of Basra, possibly foreshadowing its long-awaited offensive, U.S. intelligence sources said. The analysts said the timing for an Iranian offensive might be right because Ramadan, the month-long Muslim holy period, has just ended. Current U.S. estimates place the Iranian force at the front at about 450,000 troops, the Iraqis at 500,000.
United States intelligence analysts said today that military action in the Iran-Iraq war had intensified after a lull of about a month, and they speculated that Iran might be on the verge of a long-expected offensive. The analysts said the opposing sides had engaged in more and larger skirmishes on the Basra front since the holy month of Ramadan had ended. More air action has also been reported, the analysts said, not only Iraqi attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf but also sorties by both sides. But the analysts said they had no confirmation of reports that Iraq had sunk oil tankers carrying oil from Iran.
Iran has brought up more regular troops to the front, the analysts said, and has moved more ammunition and supplies into offensive positions. In response, they said, Iraq has moved more troops into battle positions. They said many Iranian officers had been replaced after field commanders were recalled to Teheran. The analysts doubted that a purge had taken place, but said fresh commanders had been dispatched to the front. According to dispatches from Tehran today, Iranian leaders have denied that the offensive had been delayed because of internal bickering.
“Recent repeated reports of discord among Iranian leaders on the issue of the war are nothing but illusions,” the government press agency said. On the ground, the wetlands in the Basra area have dried out and made it easier for military vehicles and foot soldiers to move. The analysts suggested that this would favor Iran rather than Iraq, which is on the defensive.
Meanwhile, a Cypriot-registered ship was the second one confirmed as hit by Iraqi air raids in the Persian Gulf on Sunday.
The Soviet ambassador to the United Nations said “there is no war in Afghanistan,” where Soviet occupation troops have been fighting guerrillas since December, 1979. Oleg Troyanovsky told correspondents at the United Nations that the Afghan government is “fending off incursions from territory of other countries.” Troyanovsky said the Afghan government is strengthening its position and “broadening its base of support.”
A Lebanese Government peace plan intended to reunite East and West Beirut, reopen the airport and harbor and end months of factional violence began to be put into effect today. Muslim and Christian militias continued pulling their heavy weapons out of Beirut in order to pave the way for the deployment of three brigades of the Lebanese Army in and around Beirut. General Michel Aoun, the new army commander, issued an order of the day telling the troops that their mission will be to re-establish the authority of the Government and ensure the safety of Lebanese citizens. The state-controlled Beirut radio reported that 9,000 soldiers and officers would move across the city either tonight or early Wednesday.
Former Israeli President Ephraim Katzir said he was “deeply offended” by his interrogation by Soviet secret police after he tried to visit a Jewish man in Leningrad on Sunday. He said his 90-minute detention might have been a warning to Soviet Jews. seeking to emigrate. Katzir, 68, an internationally known biochemist, was in Leningrad for a scientific meeting.
U.S. acceptance of a Soviet proposal to hold talks on preventing the militarization of space was underscored in a statement by Secretary of State George P. Shultz during a 90-minute talk with Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin, according to State Department officials. At a 90-minute breakfast meeting with the Soviet Ambassador, Anatoly F. Dobrynin, Mr. Shultz repeated that the United States also intended such talks to deal with “offensive missiles that go through space.” This was an allusion to the desire to resume the suspended negotiations on medium-range missiles and on strategic arms, officials said. The Soviet Union said Sunday that it rejected what it described as American preconditions for the talks aimed at banning space weapons.
London chided Moscow for rebuffing an American acceptance of its offer to negotiate a ban on space weapons. Sir Geoffrey Howe, the British Foreign Secretary, ending two days of talks with Soviet leaders, assured them that Washington set no preconditions for such a meeting. Mr. Howe added, “People will find it difficult to understand that the Soviet Union is unwilling to follow up even on their own proposal.” He said it could appear that the Russians “are unwilling to take yes for an answer.” At a news conference after five hours of talks with Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko and a meeting today with Konstantin U. Chernenko, the Soviet leader, both Sir Geoffrey and a Soviet spokesman indicated that the talks had not always gone smoothly. The Soviet spokesman, Vladimir B. Lomeiko, said the Briton had “said nothing constructive” on the issue of nuclear disarmament. He said British and Soviet views on a number of issues were diametrically opposed.
Britain’s striking miners agreed to new talks on settling the 17-week dispute that has brought violence to coal pits and divided the trade union movement. But militant miners’ leader Arthur Scargill made clear that the National Coal Board would have to withdraw plans to close 20 pits if it wanted to settle the strike. The dispute, which started over threatened closure of pits that the board calls uneconomical, has halted production at 70% of Britain’s 175 coal mines.
A thaw in Bonn-East German tension was considered likely. Officials were reportedly negotiating a major package of agreements, including a new bank credit to East Germany. Meanwhile, all but six of 55 East Germans who had taken refuge in Bonn’s mission in East Berlin were said to have abandoned the building after being reassured they would eventually be allowed to go to the West.
Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., in a recording made shortly before his assassination last August, said Imelda Marcos, wife of President Ferdinand E. Marcos, warned him that he might be killed if he returned to the Philippines. The tape was played to reporters in Tokyo by another opposition leader, Salvador Laurel, in the aftermath of Imelda Marcos’ sworn denial that she had warned Aquino.
Two foreign missionaries and six Philippine church workers were freed by a judge, who dismissed murder charges against them in exchange for the priests’ promise to leave the country. Judge Emilio Legaspi dropped charges against Father Niall O’Brien, 44, of Dublin, Ireland, and Father Brian Gore, 40, of Perth, Australia. The Roman Catholic priests and laymen were arrested in May, 1983, in the ambush-slaying of a mayor and four aides. The priests had angered local authorities by organizing poorly paid sugar plantation workers on the island of Negros, 300 miles south of Manila.
A federal magistrate in San Juan, Puerto Rico has ordered the former Mexico City Police Chief, Arturo Durazo Moreno, wanted in Mexico on corruption charges, transferred to Los Angeles to face extradition proceedings. Mr. Durazo, 61 years old, was arrested Friday night as he tried to pass through customs at San Juan International Airport with his wife, Silvia. A provisional warrant for his arrest was issued June 30 by the Federal court in Los Angeles at the request of the Mexican Government. The United States Magistrate, Jose A. Castellanos, ordered Mr. Durazo’s transfer to Los Angeles late Monday, after the former police chief waived his right to a hearing in San Juan. He had been held without bail since his arrest by Federal marshals and FBI agents.
A senior Salvadoran guerrilla official said today that leftist rebels had started forcibly recruiting Salvadoran civilians. The statement, which follows several reports of Salvadoran peasants fleeing forced recruitment by guerrillas, was the first public confirmation by a rebel official that such conscription has taken place. The official, Ana Guadalupe Martinez, a member of the rebels’ political-diplomatic commission and a senior commander of the People’s Revolutionary Army, said in an interview with four other members of the commission that civilian conscription had begun “very recently” and was not general policy. She said rebel units had taken young men from some villages in northeastern El Salvador specifically to prevent them from being conscripted by the Salvadoran Army.
The army high command has dismissed Bolivia’s second-ranking defense official and declared him a suspect in an attempted coup against the Government of President Hernan Siles Zuazo, according to an army officer. The official, Col. Mario Oxa Bustos, was ordered to report for an investigation, the officer said late Monday. Colonel Oxa is the highest-ranking official implicated in Saturday’s attempted coup, which began with the abduction of the President.
The withdrawal of South African troops from southern Angola has been postponed, a Pretoria government spokesman said Tuesday, but he contended that the plan is still on track. The assessment followed the return from talks in Zambia by South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha, where he met with an Angolan delegation. South African forces have occupied a 100-mile-deep zone of Angola, where they attempted to dislodge guerrillas of the Marxist South-West Africa People’s Organization, who seek independent black rule in Namibia.
A Peace Corps member was slain in a small village in the West African country of Togo. The victim, 23-year- old Jennifer Lynn Rubin of Oneonta, New York., was aided in adjusting to the Togo culture by a 19-year-old woman, who is now charged with her bludgeon murder. The police believe Miss Rubin was killed for telling the young woman’s father that she had stolen clothing and other items.
The Supreme Court ruled today that the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure does not apply to prison cells. The 5-to-4 decision, written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, came in one of the most bitterly disputed cases of the term. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Burger said, “The recognition of privacy rights for prisoners in their individual cells simply cannot be reconciled with the concept of incarceration and the needs and objectives of penal institutions.” He said that the “circumscription or loss of many significant rights” while in prison is also necessary “as reminders that, under our system of justice, deterrence and retribution are factors in addition to correction.” Every lower Federal court that has considered the issue has concluded that the protection applied in some degree to prison cells.
The all-male Jaycees organization can be required by state laws against discrimination to accept women as members, under a 7-to-0 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision overturned a ruling by a federal appeals court that had barred Minnesota from enforcing a public accommodations law against the Jaycees. The High Court ruled today that the Jaycees could not invoke its members’ constitutional freedom of association as a shield against application of the Minnesota law. More than 30 states, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and California, have laws similar to Minnesota’s, barring discrimination on the basis of race or sex in places of public accommodation. The extent to which the ruling today will require Jaycees chapters in other states to open their doors to women depends on whether the organization meets a state’s definition of a “public accommodation.” The Jaycees said they would comply with the ruling.
Walter F. Mondale and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, sounding familiar themes at the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called on blacks and members of other minority groups today to gather their powers to defeat President Reagan in November. In separate appearances before the delegates, they harshly criticized policies of the Reagan Administration that they said had rolled back civil rights gains. Speaking before a standing-room- only crowd of 3,000 people, Mr. Jackson called his two major opponents for the Democratic Presidential nomination, former Vice President Mondale and Senator Gary Hart, “decent men with humane instincts.” Mr. Hart is to address the convention later this week. But alluding to the coming national convention, Mr. Jackson said blacks must challenge certain positions of the party that work against the interests of minority groups.
Walter F. Mondale and Jesse Jackson met in Kansas City, Missouri, for two hours, but apparently failed to resolve key differences. At a 20-minute news conference by the two candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination after their two-hour meeting, Mr. Mondale termed the meeting “successful” and “very valuable,” and Mr. Jackson called the session “uplifting and very positive.” But Mr. Mondale appeared ill at ease, in sharp contrast to his relaxed and joking demeanor in New York last week after his meeting with his key rival for the nomination, Senator Gary Hart of Colorado.
President Reagan participates in a ceremony in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the “Duck Stamp.”
President Reagan hosts a working luncheon with environmental and conservation leaders.
Treating badly handicapped infants was at issue in 15 months of litigation and 50 hours of intense negotiations among members of Congress, hospital officials, civil rights advocates and antiabortion groups who reached agreement on principles.
Federal agents seized $6.8 million from two bank accounts in what authorities said was the largest single confiscation of drug trafficking cash in the history of federal law enforcement. The money was deposited in two accounts with the Republic Bank of Houston, said U.S. Attorney Dan Hedges of Houston. One account was in the name of European Commodities Ltd. and the other was in the name of Continental Resources Ltd. Virtually nothing was known about the companies, Hedges said. He would not name any suspects but said officials hope to make arrests in the case within a few months.
A tentative agreement with no pay increase in the first year was reached today between the city of Philadelphia and unions representing 13,600 employees, averting the threat of the first city employee strike in six years. An arbitrator handed down a ruling later in the day awarding a two-year contract to city firefighters, also containing no raise in the first year. The contracts fell in line with a police contract arbitrated earlier. The two-year contracts for the workers, agreed to shortly after the midnight Monday deadline, would freeze wages in the first year and provide workers with an 8 percent increase in the second year. In announcing the settlement, Managing Director Leo A. Brooks said, “The Mayor’s objective to maintain zero and eight has been consummated.” The unions had sought a $2,500 across-the-board raise this year.
Eleven people were indicted today by a federal grand jury in connection with a ring accused of rigging at least $3.25 million in slot machine jackpots in New Jersey and Nevada. The group worked out of Sacramento, California, and rigged slot machines in 11 casinos in Reno, Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and in Atlantic City, New Jersey, since 1980, according to the 19-count indictment. The phony jackpots included a $1.7 million payoff at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe in August, a record at the time. The winner of that jackpot, Gus Econopoulos, was subsequently arrested in Houston and has cooperated in the investigation, the authorities said.
Directors Guild of America members completed a vote that formally approved a new contract, and ended the possibility of a strike. Guild members from New York, Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis voted 511 to 31 to accept the pact during a meeting in New York. The final tally in two days of voting was 2,500 for and 157 against the final offer made by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. West Coast membership ratified the producers’ contract offer Monday by a 15-1 margin.
July Fourth holiday crowds will cheer the Beach Boys at the Washington Monument, President Reagan at the Daytona International Speedway and the winner of a Pete Fountain look-alike contest at the New Orleans’ World’s Fair. Other celebrations planned around the nation include a cockroach race in Roachdale, Indiana, and a Navy commissioning ceremony for the guided missile destroyer Yorktown in its namesake Virginia city, the site of an American victory over the British in 1781 that brought an end to fighting in the Revolutionary War.
Non-striking Phelps Dodge Corp. workers at the Morenci, Ariz., mine and smelter filed petitions seeking decertification elections for eight of nine striking unions representing them. Milo Price, a National Labor Relations Board official, said similar petitions had been filed by Phelps Dodge workers in Bisbee, Arizona, and in El Paso, Texas. The unions went on strike July 1, 1983.
Southern Baptist Convention officials in Washington declared war on smoking, notifying members of the Senate that the nation’s largest Protestant body is concerned about the health hazards of tobacco. An official said letters on the subject, delivered to Senate members, contained a controversial anti-tobacco resolution passed last month at the church’s annual meeting in Kansas City. A cover letter stated that those attending the annual meeting spoke only for themselves and that the resolution was not binding on the denomination’s 36,000 churches.
A woman whose husband kept her locked in a cage-like bedroom was freed after the police received a tip that she had not been seen for two years, the authorities said today. No charges were filed. Bonnie Misany, 43 years old, was reportedly incoherent when the police, who had been turned away by her husband, Frederick, returned to the couple’s mobile home with a search warrant last Friday. Mr. Misany, 50, said today that his wife suffered from multiple personalities, including those of Jesus Christ and Satan, and that he had put her in the room to protect her when she “would switch to a bad personality.” She was hospitalized and a psychiatric evaluation was ordered, as her court-appointed lawyer said the case underscored the inadequacy of state laws dealing with mental competency and the lack of facilities for mental patients.
NASA officials are considering combining into a single flight the best features of last week’s aborted space shuttle mission and the next flight, scheduled in August, sources said. Such a plan would eliminate one mission and would help put the shuttle launch schedule back on track, said the sources, who spoke only on condition they not be identified. They emphasized the idea is only one of several being considered after the June 26 launch-pad abort of the space shuttle Discovery’s maiden flight. Officials have said the earliest possible new launch date for Discovery is July 17.
A newspaper photographer has no right under the state or federal constitutions to withhold unpublished photos in a criminal trial, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said. The state’s highest criminal appeals court ruled in a case involving a Dallas Morning News photographer who was cited for contempt after he refused to produce for the court photos he took while covering a 1983 demonstration outside the offices of a utility company.
Air Florida grounded its planes and filed for Federal bankruptcy protection. The carrier, once the prime success story of airline deregulation, failed because of fare wars and new entrants into its markets.
A $4.8 billion tax increase in Texas, mostly to finance improvements in the public school system, was approved as legislators ended a 30-day special session.
Bargaining at private colleges and universities may be ending. An administrative law judge has ruled that faculty members at Boston University are “managers” and “supervisors” and are thus not entitled to engage in collective bargaining under Federal law. The 126-page opinion was based on a 1980 Supreme Court decision in a Yeshiva University case.
Greg Luzinski drove in four runs, three with a roof-top homer, and Tom Seaver struck out seven batters to lead the Chicago White Sox to a 9–5 victory over the Detroit Tigers tonight before 42,094 fans, the largest crowd of the season at Comiskey Park. Seaver (7–6) went six innings to get the victory. Jack Morris (12–5) suffered the loss. Ron Reed hurled the last two and two-thirds innings to get his fourth save. The Tigers grabbed the lead in the first inning on Lance Parrish’s three- run homer following singles by Lou Whitaker and Kirk Gibson.
Andre Thornton belted his 200th career homer and singled in another run to back Bert Blyleven’s four-hitter and carry the Cleveland Indians to a 15–3 victory over the Kansas City Royals. Two of the hits off Blyleven (7–3) were home runs by Steve Balboni. The Indians got 23 hits and chased the Kansas City starter and loser, Bud Black (9–6), in the second inning to snap the Royals’ winning streak at five.
If the New York Mets are looking for signs that they are a legitimate pennant contender, they may have spotted one last night. They battered Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros for more earned runs than he had given up in his previous eight starts. Home runs by George Foster and Keith Hernandez, after Ryan had allowed no hits in the first four innings, damaged him most severely and propelled the Mets to a 4–3 victory that kept them in first place. Jesse Orosco, the third pitcher, nailed down the Mets’ fourth consecutive victory with two hitless innings, picking up his 16th save.
A two-run double by the pitcher Charlie Puleo sparked a four-run sixth inning tonight as the Cincinnati Reds held on to beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6–5. Puleo (1–1) worked seven innings and gave up eight hits, struck out four and walked three. Ted Power worked the final two innings, allowing three runs. The Phillies’ starter Jerry Koosman (8–7) was the loser before 63,816 fans, the largest regular-season crowd in Veterans Stadium history.
John Candelaria hurled a four-hitter and Jason Thompson drove in four runs to help Pittsburgh Pirates snap a seven-game losing streak, as they shut out the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6–0. The veteran left-hander evened his record at 6–6 as he ended his own two-game losing streak. The rookie Ken Howell, making his first major league start, allowed eight hits in eight innings and suffered his second loss in as many decisions.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1134.28 (+4.20).
Born:
Churandy Martina, Curaçaoan Netherlands Antilles and Dutch sprinter, originally placed second in the 200 meters at the 2008 Beijing Olympics but was disqualified due to a lane violation, in Willemstad, Curaçao.
Died:
Raoul Salan, 85, French Army general and leader of OAS (Secret Army Organization) during the war in Algeria.
History Diaries 