The Soviet Union was dissatisfied with the latest United States response to its proposal for talks on space weapons and said the talks were now impossible. Deputy Foreign Minister Viktor G. Komplektov said “the current American position makes impossible the conducting of the kind of negotiations we are talking about,” but he appeared to leave the door open to change of position based on what he called “the development of diplomatic contacts.”
The White House sharply denied Moscow’s contention that the Administration’s stand was making it impossible to hold talks on space weapons. Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said, “We have accepted the Soviet proposal for discussions in Vienna in September without preconditions,” and that the Administration’s preparations for the talks “are continuing vigorously.”
A Common Market dispute on budget shares was reopened when the European Parliament voted to block payment of a $600 million budget rebate that market leaders had promised Britain as part of an agreement on reforming the market’s finances. The 212-to-70 vote against the payment came only a month after the market’s leaders announced at a summit meeting in Fontainebleau, France, that they had resolved protracted internal quarrels over money.
The Portuguese Parliament today approved in principle a new internal security bill that critics have attacked as a return to an era of suppression. While a comfortable Government majority passed the bill, which provides for searches without warrant, telephone tapping and the opening of mail, Parliament ordered it to go to committee for amendments before being voted on clause by clause. Critics said the bill conjured up memories of the secret police, the backbone of Portugal’s right-wing dictatorship that was overthrown 10 years ago. The Socialist Prime Minister, Mario Soares, asserted that a law was necessary because Portugal had no efficient mechanism to combat terrorism and organized crime.
The Lebanese command today ordered three army brigades to stand by for deployment to widen a militia-free buffer zone between the capital’s Moslem and Christian sectors, military sources said. The operation is designed to firm up the latest civil war cease-fire and plug loopholes in a security plan launched three weeks ago to disengage rival militias in and around the capital, the sources said. Prime Minister Rashid Karami gained Syria’s support for the operation during a seven-hour visit to Damascus yesterday, a source said. At daybreak tomorrow, the brigades are to fan out from the Green Line separating Beirut’s two sectors to establish the broader buffer zone, the source said. The zone will vary in width between 300 and 700 yards.
Iran’s official news agency quoted a communiqué as saying Iranian jet fighters intercepted an intruding French-made Iraqi fighter-bomber and shot it down in a dogfight yesterday over the Persian Gulf. Iraq’s daily war communiqué reported no air action over the gulf.
The House Appropriations Committee has approved $50 million in 1984 covert aid for Afghan rebels and the Senate is likely to follow suit, Congressional sources said today. They said the money was added secretly on Thursday when the influential House committee voted a $5.4 billion supplemental spending bill. The $50 million is in line with funding in recent years for Afghan rebels. The sources said funding was proposed by Charles Wilson, a conservative Democrat from Texas, but was approved on a voice vote with liberals also supporting the recommendation. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, predicted today that the Senate also would approve covert aid for the Afghan rebels.
President Ferdinand E. Marcos today accused some churches of meddling in government affairs, an apparent reference to Roman Catholics who have been vocal critics of the government’s human rights policy in the Philippines. “The separation of church and state is inviolable,” he said. “But we still hear religious leaders criticizing government and using the pulpit as an instrument for politics.” Catholic priests and nuns have often joined anti-government protests.
The interim Government of Grenada has quietly begun returning to private ownership businesses that were seized by two earlier regimes. By last month, interim government officials said, 8 of the 38 state-operated farms had been given back to the original owners. The return of a wide range of other state-run businesses is being studied, they said. United States officials have encouraged this divestiture and say it is important if Grenada is to attract private investors to help it out of its deep economic depression.
Comprehensive U.S. talks with Cuba were ruled out for now by the State Department. In response to a speech Thursday in which Fidel Castro said he would welcome steps to lessen tensions with the United States, a State Department spokesman said Havana would first have to demonstrate a willingness to make fundamental changes in its foreign policy.
A key House committee has turned down President Reagan’s request for additional Salvadoran military aid, and today the Reagan Administration said it would seek a reversal of the rejection. On Thursday the House Appropriations Committee rejected $117 million in more military aid requested by the President, contending that $126 million already provided in 1984 should be enough. A vote on a motion by Rep. Jack Kemp, Republican of New York, to restore Mr. Reagan’s request failed on a 21-to-13 vote.
Out of a total of $197.3 million requested in new military aid to Central American nations, the Democratic-controlled committee accepted only $24.7 million, with the largest share going to Honduras. William Schneider Jr., Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, said Friday that the Administration would try to reverse the committee’s vote against more Salvadoran military aid when the bill reached the House floor. The package’s chances are considered better in the Republican-dominated Senate. Mr. Schneider said in an interview that much of the requested $117 million would go to improve the Salvadoran military’s mobility through the purchase of helicopters and trucks.
President Reagan meets with President-elect of Panama, Nicholas Ardito Barletta.
President Reagan participates in a meeting with members of the Council of the Americas.
Brazil’s military Government, which has long regarded a fast-growing population to be essential to the country’s development, has for the first time started promoting an official family- planning program. The change in policy has been under discussion in senior military circles for several years, but it was only formalized last month when the Health Ministry inaugurated a health program primarily intended to make birth-control methods available to poor women. With its population growing by 2.4 percent a year and expected to rise from 130 million today to 180 million in the year 2000, Brazil was until now the most populous developing country in the world without a government family-planning program. Population experts here say Brazil’s economic crisis and its accompanying problems of unemployment, malnutrition and crime have heightened awareness among officials that, despite the country’s vast empty hinterlands, they are unable to handle the social and economic needs of the present population.
The people of a black South African village have called on Prime Minister P. W. Botha to intervene and prevent their forced removal to so-called tribal homelands under South Africa’s system of racial segregation. A letter to Mr. Botha from the village of Kwangema in the east of South Africa, which was issued today, said his Afrikaner forefathers had promised the land to the community. “We live in dread,” the letter said. “We are landowners who have built up our lives and history at Kwangema.” Plans call for the removal of 160 Kwangema families from their farmland in eastern Transvaal, 150 miles east of Johannesburg.
The Games of the XXIII Olympiad will begin tomorrow in Los Angeles with extravagant opening ceremonies worthy of its Hollywood setting. The Games will formally open with an official declaration by President Reagan, with the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum packed to its 93,000-seat capacity. Tickets are priced at $200, $100 and $50 each.
The man who shot President Reagan in March 1981 made an unannounced court appearance in Washington and said “I am ready now” to seek a “release hearing.” John W. Hinckley Jr. has been held in St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington since June 1982 when a jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity in the shootings of Mr. Reagan and three other men. Mr. Hinckley’s lawyer said he believed his client would seek only “some limited, supervised grounds privilege” at the hospital rather than complete freedom.
President Reagan is guilty of “the most outrageous kind of pandering” in efforts to get Catholic and Italian-American votes, Governor Cuomo said today. “To go yesterday and say, ‘I’m going to reach out for the Catholic vote by saying I’m against abortion’ — I mean, that was just the most outrageous kind of pandering,” said Governor Cuomo, referring to the President’s appearance in a Catholic church in Hoboken, accompanied by Frank Sinatra. Continuing to quote what he supposed were the President’s thoughts, the Governor said Mr. Reagan probably thought: ” ‘I’ll get the Catholics, I’ll put Frank Sinatra next to me, he’s Italian,’ that means all the Italians will vote for him.”
Walter F. Mondale, looking tanned and relaxed, ended a week of solitude in the North Woods today and flew back to his North Oaks, Minnesota, home to prepare for his campaign. Mr. Mondale spent six days fishing in the remote lake country of northeastern Minnesota. He left for home at mid-morning after spending 15 minutes talking about fishing and signing autographs with about 20 local residents at the Grand Marais Airport, a small landing strip on a lake. He plans a few more days’ rest in North Oaks, before opening his campaign next week with Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro, his running mate. On his way to northeastern Minnesota last Saturday, he told reporters he was going into seclusion and that they would not hear from him for a while, other than a daily report on the fish he caught.
The head of the American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee accused the Walter Mondale campaign committee today of discriminating against Arab- Americans by refusing their help and contributions. “A.D.C. takes strong exception to this policy, which in effect hangs a ‘no Arab-American sign’ on the Mondale campaign,” said James Zogby, who heads the 20,000-member organization, said in a letter of protest.
Tests on the Navy’s F-18 jet fighters underestimated the stress that has caused cracks in the jet’s tail, the chief engineer of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation said. McDonnell, the plane’s manufacturer, conducted the tests a decade ago. McDonnell is resisting the Navy’s demand that it pay for repairs. “Had we properly assessed it, we would have designed for it and not had the problems we have,” Don Snyder, director of F-18 engineering at the McDonnell Douglas Corporation, said in a telephone interview. His statement came amid preliminary jockeying between the Navy and McDonnell over which should pay to repair the F-18’s, billed as the service’s most versatile warplane. The Navy announced this week that it had restricted the way F-18’s could be flown until a design problem that sometimes causes violent air currents to buffet the plane’s tail was corrected. In January, according to a Navy spokesman, cracks were discovered in F-18’s at the Naval Air Test Center in Patuxent River, Maryland. An order to restrict flying to unstressful conditions was issued July 14.
An Argentine cargo vessel caught fire and exploded today in the Port of Houston, killing a crewman and injuring eight, the authorities said. Leslie Busby, a Houston Fire Department spokesman, said an unidentified crewman, was killed in an explosion aboard the Rio Newquin, docked at Wharf 9. “Something exploded aboard the ship and caused a crane to fall on him,” Mr. Busby said. The eight injured were taken to hospitals.
A City Council attempt to override Mayor Don Fraser’s veto of an ordinance against pornography failed by two votes today. The vote was 7 to 5 to override the veto, but 9 votes were needed. The ordinance defined pornography as a form of discrimination under city civil rights laws. It would have enabled women to seek damages from pornography distributors in court. A similar but stronger ordinance passed the council last winter but was vetoed by Mr. Fraser, who said it probably could not survive a court test.
A study group has found that Fisk University, once the nation’s leading black school for former slaves and their children, requires “bold and decisive steps” to survive, Education Secretary T. H. Bell said today. The university’s debts drew nationwide attention last year when its heat was cut off because of unpaid utility bills. The university, struggling to pay $3 million, must redefine its purpose and clientele, Mr. Bell said at a news conference. He gave Fisk’s board of trustees a report that recommended that a special advisory board be established to help the school in fund-raising and management. “The task force believes the situation at Fisk is critical enough that bold and decisive steps must be taken immediately if the university is to survive,” Mr. Bell said. “The task force concluded that Fisk, with the proper leadership and assistance, should emerge from the current situation a stronger institution.”
A Federal grand jury in Miami today indicted an aide to Nicaragua’s Minister of the Interior, along with 10 other men, on charges of drug trafficking stemming from an undercover operation. Six of the defendants, including the Nicaraguan official, Frederico Vaughan, were already charged in a criminal complaint filed last week in Florida. Three of those charged have been identified by the Justice Department as top-level traffickers in Colombian cocaine: Carlos Lehder Rivas, Pablo Escobar Gaviria and Jorge Ochoa. Mr. Lehder is a fugitive from a 1981 indictment for cocaine trafficking brought against him in Florida. He has been linked with Robert L. Vesco, a fugitive from the United States, and with narcotics trafficking in the Bahamas.
Americans are being urged to take to the streets next month in an hour-long “National Night Out” against crime, and its organizers hope it will deter criminals by focusing millions of watchful eyes on them. People are being asked to sit on their porches or stand on their stoops or sidewalks for an hour the night of August 7, both to deter crime and to show they are fed up with its menace, said Matt Peskin, executive director of the National Association of Town Watches, in an interview today. The idea has been endorsed by Mayor W. Wilson Goode of Philadelphia, who held a news conference this month urging that residents take part. Also supporting the plan are officials in Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Birmingham, Alabama, and other communities.
Mr. Peskin said he and some other members of the organization were looking for ways to increase citizen participation and spirit in the Town Watch program. It was inspired partly by the Great American Smokeout, when people give up smoking for a day. “The whole idea is to let people know there is something they can do,” Mr. Peskin said. “We’ve gone from the period of time where you could leave your doors open at night. Now, going down to the store for a paper is a major adventure.”
A World’s Fair in Chicago in 1992 might be held if the city’s business, civic and political leaders can stop arguing about it. Two years ago, Chicago and Seville, Spain, won the right to hold a special dual-city fair to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s first trip to the Americas. Seville was his home port.
James Mason, the movie actor, died of a heart attack in Lausanne, Switzerland. In the last 50 years, he had a leading role in more than 100 movies. He was 75 years old.
West Indies cricket opening batsman Gordon Greenidge smashes 223 in innings & 64 run win over England in 4th Test at Manchester; Windies lead series, 4-0.
When LaMarr Hoyt gave up five first-inning runs and the White Sox committed a season-high five errors, the Yankees should have cruised to victory here tonight. Instead, they scraped and struggled, surviving by 8–6 with Mike Armstrong claiming the victory and Dave Righetti, New York’s fifth pitcher, earning his 14th save. The problem was Phil Niekro, who gave up all the White Sox runs, dished up three home-run pitches. Afterward he was blunt in criticizing his four and two-third inning outing.
The Minnesota Twins shut out the California Angels, 2–0. Dave Engle singled in a first-inning run and Mike Smithson gave up two hits over seven and one-third innings as Minnesota pulled to within a half-game of the first-place Angels. Smithson (11–8) gave up a single to Rod Carew, the Angels’ second batter in the game, then retired 19 of the next 20 batters before Reggie Jackson singled to right in the seventh.
The Red Sox and Tigers almost match shutouts, as the Tigers win 9–1 and the Red Sox come back, 4–0. Rich Gedman’s 9th inning homer in the opener off Dan Petry (14–4) is the only Sox score. Tiger catcher Lance Parrish has a 2-run homer and a straight steal of home. Wade Boggs lines 4 hits and Bob Ojeda allows just 3 hits in the nightcap to win for Boston. Detroit leads in the East by 12 games.
Gary Roenicke cracked a three-run homer and Cal Ripken had three hits to power the Baltimore Orioles to a 4–3 win over the Cleveland Indians. Roenicke’s fifth homer of the year, coming in the third after singles by Ripken and Eddie Murray, sparked Strom Davis (10–4) to his fourth straight victory.
Luis Salazar and Kevin McReynolds each hit two- run homers and Steve Garvey drove in a pair of runs with a single and a triple to lead the San Diego Padres to a 7–3 drubbing of the Houston Astros. Tony Gwynn, the National League’s leading hitter, went 3-for-4 to give him 10 hits in his last 13 times at bat. Craig Lefferts pitched four innings in relief to preserve Ed Whitson’s 12th victory.
Willie McGee, activated hours earlier from the disabled list, hit a sacrifice fly in the 10th inning to lift the St. Louis Cardinals to a 3–2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Joaquin Andujar (14-9) pitched nine innings in snapping a personal three-game losing streak.
The Mets are finding out more and more about themselves as each day passes. Last night, on the way to a 2–1 victory over the Cubs that increased their first-place lead to four and a half games in the National League East, they found that their most promising pitcher can succeed when not at his best. Before a crowd of 51,102 at Shea Stadium, the Mets’ biggest since July 10, 1982, Dwight Gooden struggled with his control. He allowed seven walks – but only four hits – on the way to his ninth victory in 15 decisions. His fastball was good enough to collect eight strikeouts and increase his league-leading total to 162, but the rookie right-hander won more through his sheer determination and persistence than his 90-mile-an-hour fastballs or darting curves. “I had a tough time early,” said Gooden, who gave up six walks in the first five innings, after averaging about three a game in his previous 19 starts. “Finally, I started to get command of my pitches more and more. I was below average early. I guess that’s part of the game.” For the Mets, clutch hitting was also part of the game. Wally Backman, with the score tied at 1–1 in the seventh, delivered the winning run with a line single to center that scored Rafael Santana. The victory, the seventh straight for the Mets, lifted their record 22 games over .500 (59-37).
Jim Wohlford cracked a bases-loaded double and Tim Wallach drove in three runs with a homer and a two-run single as the Montreal Expos defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, 6–1, tonight. Pete Rose collected his 3,053rd career single off Steve Carlton in the 7th inning, passing Ty Cobb as baseball’s all-time singles king.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1114.62 (+7.07).
Born:
Max Scherzer, MLB pitcher (World Series Champions, 2019-Nationals, 2023-Rangers; Cy Young, AL, 2013, NL, 2016, 2017; All-Star, 2013-2019, 2021; Arizona Diamondbacks, Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Texas Rangers), in St. Louis, Missouri.
Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Japanese MLB shortstop and second baseman (Minnesota Twins), in Nara, Japan.
Antoine Bethea, NFL safety (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 41-Colts, 2006; Pro Bowl, 2007, 2009, 2014; Indianapolis Colts, San Francisco 49ers, Arizona Cardinals, New York Giants), in Savannah, Georgia.
Jonathan Stupar, NFL tight end (Buffalo Bills), in State College, Pennsylvania.
Taylor Schilling, American actress (Orange Is the New Black), in Boston, Massachusetts.
Died:
James Mason, 75, British actor (“Lolita”, “North by Northwest”, “Bloodline”, “Boys from Brazil”), of a heart attack.
Oswald Jacoby, 81, U.S. contract bridge champion.
History Diaries 