President Reagan was willing to delay the start of Soviet-proposed talks on space weapons until after November to keep the issue out of the Presidential campaign. The new element in the talks came in a letter to the Soviet leader, Konstantin U. Chernenko, according to Administration officials. “We gave them the choice,” said one senior Administration official. “We accepted for September in Vienna, but if they’re nervous about our politics, about helping Reagan in the campaign, we’re prepared to do it after.” Robert Sims, a White House spokesman, indirectly confirmed the content of the Reagan letter. He reiterated the Administration’s acceptance of the Soviet proposal to talk, saying Mr. Reagan was prepared for the meeting “to take place at any mutually convenient time.” He stressed, however, that “we’ve agreed to meet in September.” The officials said the White House had yet to receive a clear reply from the Kremlin. The senior Administration official said the Russians were sending conflicting signals, “probably reflecting their own uncertainty and an internal debate.”
Secretary of State George P. Schultz, when asked about reports from Washington of the American willingness to delay the space arms talks until after the election, told a news conference here this morning that the United States wanted to meet with the Soviet Union in September, as Moscow originally proposed. But, he said, “They keep talking about our elections. We don’t want to delay these talks,” he continued, “but if for some reason they can’t conveniently be arranged in the time that’s set, then if there is somehow some desire for them to take place after the elections, then they’ll take place after the elections.” He stressed again, however, that “our desire is to have them take place in September, as was originally set, but we’re not going to hang on that. On the contrary, our desire is to get them going, and getting them going in a constructive way, as soon as possible.”
The USSR performed a nuclear Test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan.
Soviet forces in Afghanistan, now in their fifth year of fighting, have greatly disrupted the rural communities that have been supporting the Afghan rebels, military analysts say. United States and North Atlantic alliance intelligence officials say many villages that have provided food, water and shelter to the Islamic rebels have been systematically destroyed by air strikes and armored forays. They say food distribution has been disrupted, livestock slaughtered and irrigation projects destroyed from the air. The result, the analysts say, is that many village populations have left to seek refuge away from combat areas, leaving the insurgents without the supplies they need. But the analysts stress that even with such destruction of the insurgents’ rural support, they doubt that Soviet troops at their present force levels can secure conditions that would enable them to withdraw. One analyst notes that the Soviet troops lack the 10-to-1 numerical advantage that Western strategists generally believe is necessary to defeat an insurgency and says the Russians would need “massive reinforcement” of their 105,000 troops.
Two part-time British soldiers — one of them a woman — were killed and a third soldier was wounded when a land mine exploded on a road in Northern Ireland near the Irish Republic border, police in Dublin reported. The outlawed Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility. The dead were identified as Pvt. Norman McKinley and Cpl. Heather Kerrigan, 20, one of several hundred women, known as Greenfinches, in the locally recruited Ulster Defense Regiment. They hold mainly administrative jobs, but some walk unarmed in military patrols, as Kerrigan was doing when she was killed.
Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher hinted today that her government was prepared to use emergency powers if necessary to beat strikes in the docks and the coal industry. “The government will do everything necessary to keep the country working,” the Conservative leader said in a speech. “The country will not be held to ransom by a tiny minority — 200,000 at the most — who are trying to impose their will on the other 55 million of us,” she said. Britain’s world trade was virtually at a standstill today as the dockers strike spread to nearly all major ports and other workers joined a rising tide of industrial unrest.
The French President and the armed forces paraded down the Champs Élysées today, all brass and flags, and the thin crowds watched and applauded, without acclamation or passion or cheers. An enormous tricolor flew in the vaulted space under the Arc de Triomphe, turning in magnificent windy spirals. Jets rushed overhead, leaving blue, white and red contrails, streamers of rainbow smoke. And President Francois Mitterrand, standing in an open command car, drove the length of the avenue, looking grave on Bastille Day, by tradition the French festival of the republic and the rights of man. “I don’t understand why the French are dissatisfied,” Mr. Mitterrand said a few weeks ago, acknowledging a malaise, but not its cause. The crowd at the parade today, its detachment singled out by the exquisite palate of banners and uniforms, seemed almost anesthetized, offering Mr. Mitterrand neither explanations nor contradictions, just a fragile sense of distance.
Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou and General Bernard W. Rogers, the American who is top NATO commander in Europe, have ended talks on the inclusion of the Greek Aegean island of Lemnos in alliance exercises and the establishment of a NATO command in central Greece, an official close to the talks said today. General Rogers arrived on an unscheduled visit Friday and held talks with the Prime Minister and the chief of the defense staff, Admiral Theodoros Deyannis. Officials here declined to comment on the talks and to say if any agreements had been reached. Greece has refused to take part in NATO Aegean maneuvers because the alliance would not include Lemnos in the exercises, officials said. Turkey has insisted on the exclusion of Lemnos, saying international treaties forbid the island’s militarization.
The Turkish Parliament has approved a five- year economic plan designed to cut inflation, increase exports and prepare for full membership in the European Economic Community. The 1985-89 plan calls for growth in the gross national product of 5.3 percent in 1985, rising to 7.1 percent in 1989, as compared with a target of 4.7 percent this year. The plan, approved by a 203-to-153 vote in Parliament Friday night, also envisages transition to full convertibility of the Turkish lira by 1989. The plan, proposed by Prime Minister Turgut Özal, is intended to prepare Turkey for full membership in the European Community but sets no date for an application. Turkey has been an associate member since 1963 and is entitled to apply for full membership.
A pro- Solidarity Polish Roman Catholic priest under investigation for purported abuse of religious freedom said today that he faces charges of causing public unrest. The Rev. Henryk Jankowski, one of the closet advisers to Lech Walesa, the founder of the Solidarity union, is the priest charged. He said he appeared at the prosecutor’s office in the Baltic port of Gdansk today and was given a copy of the Government case against him. Rev. Jankowski, in a telephone interview from his Gdansk apartment, said the Government accused him of causing “public anxiety” by announcing when he was summoned to appear before the prosecutor. He called the charge “completely nonsensical.”
Pope John Paul II led prayers today for four Polish dissidents who are being tried on charges of trying to overthrow the Government. The Pope also issued one of his strongest calls ever for respect of human rights in his native land. The appeal, issued in the form of a prayer at special mass celebrated with 11 Polish priests at the papal summer residence here, also called for the liberation of political prisoners in Poland.
Fighting between two pro-Syrian militia forces in northern Lebanon slackened today after President Hafez al-Assad of Syria threatened to order his army to intervene. After an overnight cease-fire, however, there were reports of new artillery fire in some parts of the Koura district in the afternoon. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The radio station of the Maronite Christians’ Marada Brigade accused the National Syrian Social Party of using artillery against Koura villages in the early afternoon. In Beirut, a Christian Phalangist radio station reported artillery exchanges in the areas and the state-run Beirut radio also reported gunfire. Militia and hospital sources said about 28 people had been killed and 130 wounded in the latest of round of fighting between the two militias. President Assad, disturbed that fighting between friendly forces was occurring in an area controlled by the Syrian Army, issued an ultimatum for a truce by 1 AM today, saying the Syrian Army would step in otherwise.
Two Philippine lawyer’s groups have charged that opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. was shot by his military escorts as part of a “military conspiracy of a high but restricted nature.” The Philippine Bar Association and the Catholic Lawyers’ Group of the Philippines said in a report to the commission investigating Aquino’s murder that close security made it impossible for Rolando Galman to have shot Aquino on August 21 as the government claims. Meanwhile, Rosendo Cawignan, the key government witness, died at an armed forces medical center, reportedly of a heart ailment at age 44.
Vietnam charged that Chinese troops have attacked and occupied hills in two districts of Vietnam’s northern border province of Hà Tuyên. The official Vietnam News Agency reported that in constant shelling since early April, China has fired more than 600,000 artillery rounds on 28 of Hà Tuyên’s 33 districts. According to China, the latest flare-up in hostilities between the two Communist nations began Thursday when a division of Vietnamese troops stormed across the border in Yunnan Province.
Nine members of a new South Korean opposition political group were detained by the police Friday night as they tried to set up headquarters at a downtown office building, witnesses said today. Members of the group, the Council for Democratization, which opposes authoritarian rule here, found elevators stopped and stairways blocked when they tried to move into a rented office, witnesses said. The government and the police declined to comment. The police took nine council members to a police station, then told all but one today that they could leave, the witnesses said. Because of the one detention, five council members refused to leave, the witnesses said. Members of the group, announcing its formation May 18, said it would “continue a struggle for democratization.”
New Zealand’s Labor Party defeated Sir Robert Muldoon’s conservative National Party in general elections. Its victory could cause major problems for United States defense commitments in the region, American officials say. The Labor Party, led by David Lange, a 41-year-old lawyer, has called for a renegotiation of New Zealand’s 33-year-old defense treaty with the United States and Australia and wants to ban American nuclear- armed and nuclear-powered naval vessels from its waters.
Private aid for Nicaraguan rebels has supplemented the support the United States Government has been giving the rebels, according to Reagan Administration officials and members of the private groups. In the last year more than $17 million in such supplies as medicine, food and military uniforms has been provided by a variety of American conservative political and religious organizations.
Nicaragua announced today that it intended to proceed with a trial of a priest charged with “counterrevolutionary” activities. Daniel Ortega Saavedra, coordinator of the Nicaraguan junta, also announced that the Rev. Fernando Cardenal, a Jesuit priest, had been named as Education Minister to replace Carlos Tunnerman Bernheim, who has been appointed Nicaragua’s Ambassador to Washington. Both developments were considered likely to deepen strains between Nicaragua and the Roman Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II has demanded that three priests now serving in Nicaragua Government posts leave to return to their church duties. A church official in Managua said in an interview that the trial was the Nicaragua Government’s “challenge” to the Pope’s condemnation of the expulsions.
Salvadoran guerrillas knocked out electric transmission towers and cut power in four eastern provinces, while a rebel roadblock halted all traffic on the Pan American Highway between Honduras and El Salvador. The provinces of Morazan, San Miguel, Usulutan and La Union, with a total population of about 1 million, were blacked out. About 50 trucks laden with goods for San Salvador were stopped only two miles from the Honduras border by the leftist blockade. Other vehicles were diverted through northern Honduras and Guatemala to avoid El Salvador.
Argentina is only months away from building a missile that can hit the Falkland Islands from the Argentine mainland, the Sunday Times of London reported. The newspaper said West German and Italian rocket experts have been helping the Buenos Aires government develop the new missile at a secret laboratory in Azul, 300 miles southwest of the capital. The missile, code named Condor, is believed to have a range of 800 miles. Argentina unsuccessfully invaded the Falklands, a British colony 400 miles off its coast, two years ago.
South Africa’s Parliament has held its last session as an all-white body, with some conservative members walking out over a plan that will give limited legislative powers to nonwhites. Under a new constitution that takes effect in September, there will be separate chambers for whites, Asians and mixed-race Coloreds. The whites will have an effective veto over the other two chambers, and whites will control the executive. The change will still leave blacks, who are 73% of the population, with no representation and no vote.
Charles Manatt was asked to give up the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee by Walter F. Mondale, who announced the appointment of Bert Lance as the “general chairman” of the Mondale campaign. Mr. Lance is chairman of the Georgia Democratic party and an unpopular figure with some national party leaders. The announcement raised protests among convention delegates and some key Mondale backers. It also diverted attention from the generally approving response to Mr. Mondale’s selection of Geraldine A. Ferraro as his running mate.
A more stable nominating process has been developed under new rules adopted for the Democratic convention and will favor mainstream candidates and policies, according to party leaders, who say the process will also be more predictable. Their judgment was reinforced by a New York Times poll of convention delegates.
President Reagan’s campaign today attacked remarks by Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro casting doubt on his religion. John Buckley, a campaign spokesman, said in Washington that Mr. Reagan’s “Christianity goes without saying” and that she should leave questions of this sort to a higher authority.” As Walter F. Mondale and Mrs. Ferraro settled into a weekend of convention preparation in this lakeside mountain resort, a spokesman for Mr. Mondale said the probable Democratic Presidential nominee agreed with what Mrs. Ferraro had said. “He understood what she was saying,” said Maxine Isaacs, Mr. Mondale’s press secretary. “Her definition of a good Christian is someone who is a caring, compassionate person, and he agreed with that.” At her first news conference with Mr. Mondale after he chose her as his running mate, Mrs. Ferraro, a Roman Catholic, said: “President Reagan walks around calling himself a good Christian. I don’t for one minute believe it.” She said this was because his policies were “discriminatory” and “terribly unfair.”
Representative Ferraro’s chief rival as Mr. Mondale neared a choice for his running mate was Mayor Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco. Mr. Mondale seemed to be leaning toward Mrs. Feinstein, but switched to Representative Ferraro after receiving advice from Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, who had been a Vice-Presidential contender, and Speaker of the House Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., a Ferraro supporter.
Vice President Bush accused Mr. Mondale of ignoring alleged massacres and human rights abuses in Nicaragua. In one of the Republicans’ sharpest attacks on the Democrat, Mr. Bush said in a speech at the Colorado Republican Convention that Mr. Mondale has “has opposed every specific action the Administration has taken to meet the Communist threat in Nicaragua.” Vice President Bush, opening a new phase in the Republican campaign for the White House, today directly attacked the economic and foreign policies of Walter F. Mondale. In a speech to the Colorado Republican convention, a copy of which was made public in Washington, he characterized Mr. Mondale as a member of the “same old clique” of liberal Democrats like President Jimmy Carter and George McGovern who, he said, are “trying to tear down the President of the United States because they don’t have an economic program of their own.”
President Reagan participates in a national radio address on the environment.
The President and First Lady enjoy a day of riding and relaxing by the pool at Camp David.
The President and First Lady watch the movie “Ghostbusters.”
The STS 41-D launch vehicle with space shuttle orbiter Discovery moves back to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida for remanifest of payloads. The space shuttle Discovery was rolled back to the assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will be towed to a hangar this week to be prepared for its twice-delayed first flight around August 24. Discovery is to carry an augmented payload, including two commercial communications satellites, a military relay station and an experimental collapsible 10-story solar cell array. combining what was to have been taken aloft on its first two missions.
Wilderness legislation has emerged as one of the dominant themes of the current Congress, which could add more wilderness acreage to the lower 48 states in this session than in any since the National Wilderness Preservation System was enacted in 1964. More than two dozen states are affected by the proposed designation of about 10 million acres as wilderness preserves.
The Washington and Lee University board of trustees ended a 235-year, all-male tradition in Lexington, Virginia, by voting to admit women undergraduates in 1985. The trustees voted 17 to 7 to approve coeducation in hopes of invigorating the school’s academics and finances. The change was not welcomed by alumni. The school, one of five all-male, liberal arts colleges remaining in the nation, was endowed by George Washington. Confederate General Robert E. Lee served as its president after the Civil War.
Norfolk, Virginia, received more than $41,000 in disputed taxes, penalties and interest owed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church for 83 fishing boats and related equipment, officials said. The city had planned to auction the boats to recover taxes that officials said the church owed. The church contended the boats were exempt and is contesting the levy in court. Karen Smith, director of the church’s Ocean Challenge Program in Gloucester, Massachusetts, said the church paid the taxes to avoid losing the boats. “We still feel we’re being improperly taxed,” she said. “We are forced to pay.”
Thirty New York City hospitals and nursing homes were operating under emergency plans as a strike by 30,000 non-medical workers entered its first full day. Supervisory personnel, working double and triple shifts, took over duties of the strikers at 27 private hospitals and three nursing homes. As additional contracts expire this week, the number of strikers could rise to 46,000 workers at 46 facilities. Strikers are demanding a 10% raise and every other weekend off.
American Legion members in Ohio voted to boycott all activities and products connected with actress Jane Fonda, whom they called “a harmful influence on society.” The resolution, passed at their convention in Dayton, was prompted by Fonda’s 1972 trip to Hanoi during the Vietnam War, which the legion said could be “construed as lending aid and comfort to the enemy.” Spokesman Jim Gedra said the resolution was a reaction to the growing popularity of Fonda’s workout programs, books and exercise wear. “Those are going to be permanent things at the local level,” he said. “Movies would come and go, but she’s trying to set up these (exercise) parlors on a permanent basis.”
A Marine Corps pilot has been convicted of “conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman” and other charges when he decided to marry an enlisted woman and would not stop seeing her, officials say. Captain John Moultak, 27 years old, of New York City, an eight-year veteran who is stationed at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, was court-martialed Friday and given a dishonorable discharge. His fiancée, Lance Corporal Kandi Clark, 22, said she was ordered to accept immunity from prosecution and testify against Captain Moultak. Captain Moultak said his request for an honorable discharge was rejected, and “now I’ve been kicked out as a criminal because I fell in love.” But Major General Clayton L. Comfort, commander of the Third Marine Aircraft Wing, said: “I can assure you the charges were far more than just that.” Captain Moultak was also convicted of “conduct prejudicial to the good order and discipline of the armed forces,” making false statements, obstructing justice and disobeying a lawful general order. The corps forbids fraternization between officers and enlisted personnel.
A twin-engine airplane slammed into a shed behind a California automobile dealership and exploded in flames today, killing all six aboard the aircraft, the authorities said. The plane, a twin-engine Piper Cheyenne turbo-prop, slammed into a shed behind the Shepherd Pontiac-Honda dealership at 12:12 PM in Concord, about 35 miles east of San Francisco, said Pete Alioto, a Contra Costa Consolidated Fire District dispatcher.
The northeast Arkansas town of Cotton Plant was left without a police force after a motorcyclist shot and killed the police chief and a patrolman just hours after a third officer was dismissed, officials said. “My God, it’s terrible,” Emmitt Conley said. “It’s a tremendous loss because if something like this happens in a rural community, everyone is affected and you’ve got problems.” Chief Leonard Cross and Patrolman Roy Leon Jr. were shot about 10 PM Friday after they stopped a motorcyclist who, the police said, was behaving suspiciously, and asked him for identification. The cyclist fled on foot, said Lieutenant George Riggs of the state police. A 16-year-old male was arrested and charged this morning with two counts of capital murder, officials said.
Thunderstorms packing hail and 55-m.p.h. winds rumbled through the northern Plains, knocking some small Minnesota airplanes about like toys and cutting power to 6,500 customers. A Minnesota thunderstorm, which gave just “a minute or two” of warning, spun two twin-engine planes at Crystal Airport around and then ran them into each other.
Drew Pearson, the 33-year-old wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, says his professional football career is over. Pearson, who underwent surgery to repair damage to his liver after an automobile accident earlier this year, made the announcement from Dallas in a telephone conversation with the Cowboys’ coach, Tom Landry.
Julio Cruz and Harold Baines hit home runs for two of the three hits off Mike Flanagan, and Tom Seaver won the pitchers’ duel by hurling the Chicago White Sox to a 3–2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles today. Seaver (8–6) won his 281st game by yielding seven hits, walking one and striking out seven. He retired 11 in a row until John Lowenstein hit his sixth homer with one out in the ninth. Baines was 0 for 14 in his career against Flanagan when he hammered his 15th homer with one out in the fourth to snap a 1–1 tie. The switch-hitting Cruz, batting .200, sliced his fourth homer into the right-field bleachers in the third after Flanagan (9–7) had retired the first eight Chicago batters. Flanagan had retired 13 in a row when Carlton Fisk led off the ninth with a single, and the White Sox eked out what proved to be the winning run on a fielder’s-choice grounder by Dave Stegman.
Detroit’s Kirk Gibson scored the go-ahead run on a close play at the plate in the 12th inning, and two relievers, Doug Bair and Willie Hernandez, combined for six and one-third innings of one-hit relief as the Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 6–5.
Bob Boone led off the 10th inning with his first homer of the season to give the California Angels a 2–1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. Boone picked on a 1–2 pitch from the reliever Tom Tellman (3–2). The blow rewarded the iron-man effort of the rookie right-hander Ron Romanick (9–9), who went the route while allowing five hits, walking one and striking out two. Romanick’s foe for eight innings was Moose Haas, who held the Angels to seven hits before being relieved by Tellman at the start of the ninth.
Rookie Orel Hershiser pitched a two-hitter and German Rivera doubled and hit a two-run homer to lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to an 8–0 victory over the Chicago Cubs today. Hershiser (5–3), who has allowed only one run in his last 35⅔ innings, struck out nine and walked one as the Dodgers ended a three-game losing streak. Chicago had won three straight. Hershiser allowed only two singles and did not give up a hit after the third inning. The only hits off the rookie right-hander were by Jay Johnstone in the first and Bob Dernier in the third.
Rick Rhoden pitched a five-hitter, and Jim Morrison drove in four runs with a homer, single and a ground ball to lead the Pittsburgh Pirates to a 6–2 win over the San Francisco Giants. Rhoden (7–7) retired 14 batters in a row at one point, struck out 6 and walked 2. Manny Trillo singled with one out in the second, and Rhoden did not allow another base runner until Jeff Leonard doubled to lead off the seventh. Chili Davis had given the Giants a short-lived 1–0 lead when he led off the game with his eighth homer of the season. But the Pirates, winning their fifth in a row, jumped on Mark Davis (3-9) for two runs in the bottom of the first.
The Philadelphia Phillies downed the Houston Astros, 4–3. Glenn Wilson drove in three runs with a single and a double to pace a 16-hit attack for Philadelphia. Jerry Koosman (10–7) went seven innings, allowing three runs and seven hits, to get the victory. Al Holland went the last two innings to record his 19th save.
Born:
Renaldo Balkman, NBA small forward and power forward (New York Knicks, Denver Nuggets), in Staten Island, New York, New York.
Chris Steele, Canadian rock bassist, (Alexisonfire), in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Died:
Philippe Wynne, 43, American soul singer (lead vocalist of The Spinners, “I’ll Be Around”), of a heart attack.
Al Schacht, 91, “Clown prince of baseball”, MLB pitcher and coach.
Ernest Tidyman, 56, American author and screenwriter (“Shaft”; “The French Connection”).
Kenny Delmar, 74, American comedian (“School House”).
History Diaries 