Andrei A. Gromyko was pessimistic about the prospect of Soviet-American talks being held in September on banning weapons in space, according to former Senator George McGovern, who is on a private visit to Moscow. Mr. McGovern, who had a three-hour conversation with the Soviet Foreign Minister, quoted Mr. Gromyko as saying he does not expect the talks to be held.
Mr. Gromyko’s reported pessimism about the likelihood of arms talks with the United States did not discourage the Reagan Administration. Officials said they had detected several indications that the Soviet Foreign Minister might be less warm to the Vienna negotiations than the Soviet leader, Konstantin U. Chernenko. They said the Administration was continuing to assess whether the Soviet Union was serious in its June 29 offer to discuss limits on space weapons.
A special church service in Warsaw was held for the Solidarity activists freed under a sweeping amnesty. The service, attended by 7,000 people, was marked by applause, tears and prayers and calls by priests for an end to censorship and restoration of the Solidarity labor union. Since the proclamation of martial law, special masses for activists detained by the police have been held on the last Sunday of each month at St. Stanislaw’s Church. The crowd today was unusually large, flowing out of the church into the courtyard and out into the street.
Slightly more than half of the 652 political prisoners ordered released under the amnesty have yet to be freed. At one point just before the service, young men hung two banners on the church fence proclaiming: “Solidarity Welcomes Prisoners of Conscience.” The people responded with applause and then stood for several minutes with hands raised up in the two-finger V for victory salute of the movement. Some Poles said it had been a long time since that salute or the red script with the name Solidarity had been so openly brandished.
“In the amnesty we see a very important step, one that could lead to reconciliation,” said the Rev. Jerzy Popieluszko, the priest who conducted the monthly masses and was himself facing charges of hiding arms. The amnesty applied to him, too. “First, all political prisoners must be freed,” the priest said, referring to the few men still facing charges of high treason, not covered by the amnesty. “We pray to God in thanks for the amnesty and we make an appeal to the Government that never again shall we have people in Poland imprisoned for their beliefs.”
[Ed: Sadly, it is Reverend Popieluszko himself who will be murdered by the Communist secret police later this year.]
A gunbattle broke out in West Beirut between rival leftist militias, the first major outbreak of violence in the capital since the Lebanese Government’s peace plan went into effect early this month. At least two people were reported killed and 15 wounded. One of those killed was identified as a civil defense worker trying to rescue the wounded. The battle, which quickly spread through several West Beirut neighborhoods, raged for two hours before the Lebanese Army moved in to halt it. The clash, between the Druze militiamen of the Progressive Socialist Party and the mostly Sunni Moslem Mourabitoun, was believed to have been touched off by a dispute over the political posters that are plastered all over walls here.
The clash seemed to illustrate the tenuous nature of the peace. For hours, gunmen roamed the streets brandishing AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, and the sound of rockets, mortars and machine guns broke the early afternoon quiet as the militias attacked each other’s positions. Today’s fighting did not follow the traditional pattern of hostility between the Christian militias of East Beirut and the Muslim and Druze militias in the West, but between two militias that are nominal allies. As such, it seemed to support increasing fears among residents in West Beirut that the growing strains between Druze, Sunni and Shiite Muslim factions may lead to a new round of warfare.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s political alliance received the support of a small party with four crucial parliamentary seats, giving the ruling Likud bloc a boost as it competed with the opposition Labor Party for enough strength to form a new government. Likud was endorsed by the Sephardic Torah Guardians, a party composed of ultra-Orthodox Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin. Its support was not enough to assure Shamir of a parliamentary majority but might have a psychological effect on undecided parties.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will keep relations with Israel frozen as long as Israeli forces remain in Lebanon and Palestinian problems remain unresolved, Cairo press reports indicated. Mubarak, quoted in the semiofficial Egyptian press, also said progress must be made on Taba beach — a small Sinai Peninsula site still held by Israel — before he will send Egypt’s ambassador back to Tel Aviv after an absence of nearly two years. The Israeli envoy has remained in Cairo.
Libya has complained to the United Nations and other international organizations about the presence of American planes over the Gulf of Sidra on Thursday, the official Libyan press agency said today. The Libyan Foreign Ministry wrote to the United Nations Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, on Saturday and described the incident as a violation of Libyan territorial waters, the agency said. Libya claims territorial rights over the Gulf of Sidra, a bay off its Mediterranean coastline. The United States disputes the assertion, and the Pentagon said Thursday that F-14 jet fighters from the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga had flown exercises over the area without incident.
Fierce clashes were reported in northwestern Iran between Kurdish insurgents and Iranian troops, and observers speculated that the Tehran regime has launched a new drive against Kurdish tribes fighting for autonomy. The Iranian military said at least 220 Kurdish rebels and Iraqi soldiers were killed and 500 wounded in three days of fighting. Iran accuses the Iraqis of aiding the rebellion in the Kurdish region, near the Iraqi frontier.
Vietnamese troops shelled a refugee camp in Cambodia with heavy artillery today, forcing more than 2,000 civilians and 500 rebels to flee into Thailand, Thai military officials said. Western relief officials said the dawn attack on the O-Smak camp, 180 miles northeast of Bangkok, caused many casualties and forced the entire population of more than 2,000 refugees and 500 rebels to take shelter across the border in Thailand. Officials of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, based in the nearby Thai province of Buri Ram, sent urgent requests to other agencies along the border to help care for the new refugees. The artillery attack followed warnings over Cambodian radio stations by Vietnamese military authorities that Hanoi planned to attack guerrilla positions during the monsoon season.
Solid progress was made in Peking in negotiations on Hong Kong’s future, according to the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe. He and the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wu Xueqian, held two days of talks, but neither side would give details on what the progress was.
North Korea said it has released a Japanese fishing boat and its crew, but it remained silent on the capture of another Japanese boat and the shooting of its captain over the weekend. In a broadcast monitored in Tokyo, the North Korean Central News Agency said the Shinyu Maru No. 77, seized July 16, was released because “the Japanese crewmen frankly confessed to their crime” (violating territorial waters). Japanese officials, meanwhile, confirmed that the Yachiyo Maru 36, fired on Saturday, is now in the North Korean port of Chongjin.
One of two infant Siamese twins separated by Toronto doctors became “very sick” and underwent emergency surgery to stop massive internal bleeding, spokesmen for the Hospital for Sick Children said. The child, 22-year-old Win Htut of Burma, was separated from the twin, Lin, in a complicated, 12-hour operation. They were born joined at the pelvis and shared a third, deformed leg as well as one set of genitalia, a liver, intestinal and urinary tracts and some bones. Since Lin received the male genitals, the operation essentially changed the sex of Win.
Two armed hijackers demanding money and weapons seized a Venezuelan DC-9 airliner carrying 87 people, including four Americans, after takeoff from Caracas and forced it to fly to the Dutch island of Aruba in the Caribbean. The hijackers, of unknown nationalities, demanded that Venezuela give them $5 million or, instead, 350 machine guns, hand grenades and other arms, officials said. Venezuela was refusing to meet the demands. The plane also made forced stops at the Venezuelan island of Margarita and in Trinidad.
President Fernando Belaunde Terry says guerrillas backed by drug traffickers may pose the biggest threat ever faced by Peru. In his annual speech to Congress, Mr. Belaunde Terry said Saturday night that rebels from the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (“Shining Path”) group were responsible for 2,700 attacks and the deaths of 77 policemen in the last year. Mr. Belaunde Terry, who entered his fifth and final year in office today, said drug traffickers were giving money and arms to the guerrillas. Security forces broke up 100 guerrilla units and arrested 843 suspects, he said, but the rebels still caused $15 million in damage to electricity plants and bridges. Hours after the speech, the rebels mounted a wave of bombing attacks Saturday night, hitting targets in four cities, wounding eight people and knocking out power in major provincial centers.
Zairians were reported casting ballots in large numbers today, the second day of voting in a presidential election in which President Mobutu Sese Seko, the only candidate, is seeking a third term in office. The country’s official press agency said that 85 percent of the eligible voters in this capital of 3 million had already voted by the end of the day Saturday and that the turnout was expected to reach 100 percent by the time the polls closed. Heavy turnouts were also reported in the rest of Zaire. Voting in this central African nation is mandatory for citizens 18 and older. About 17 million of Zaire’s 30 million people are of voting age. Voters can choose a green ballot signifying approval of Mr. Mobutu or a red ballot signifying a “no” vote.
Three Soviet cosmonauts, including the first woman to walk in space, successfully landed their spacecraft in Kazakhstan in Soviet Central Asia, the Tass news agency reported. The three-member crew of the Soyuz T-12 space capsule had spent 11 days aboard the orbiting Salyut 7 space station. Svetlana Savitskaya spent 3½ hours outside the space station last Wednesday, taking part in a test of a new tool.
The President and First Lady enjoy a morning ride at their ranch. President Reagan began an 18-day vacation at his isolated ranch north of Santa Barbara after officially opening the Olympic Games. Horseback riding, clearing brush from riding trails and chopping wood are main items on his agenda, but spokesman Larry Speakes said that Reagan also will conduct some business. Secretary of State George P. Shultz told reporters there may be a decision on whether the United States will lift sanctions against Poland.
Democrats criticized President Reagan for refusing to acknowledge that a tax increase may be necessary in 1985, while Republicans called for further cuts in spending during the opening hours of the National Governors’ Association conference. “It is philosophically, morally and politically wrong to be talking about raising taxes before you’ve gone a tenth of the way in cutting spending.” Republican Governor James R. Thompson of Illinois, the association chairman, said at the group’s meeting in Nashville. Democratic Governor Charles S. Robb of Virginia said the GOP has backed away from the tax increases needed to reduce the federal deficit.
After a weeklong fishing trip along the Canadian border, Walter F. Mondale returned to the political fray today and said the Reagan Administration had the “lousiest” environmental record in the nation’s history. At the same time, Mr. Mondale reiterated his charge that President Reagan had a “secret” plan to increase taxes after the election. “I have no doubt that tax approach will be one that strikes middle and moderate-income Americans very, very hard,” the Democratic Presidential nominee said. He made his comments to reporters at the steps of the Grace Trinity Presbyterian Church after he and his wife, Joan, attended Sunday morning services. The comments marked the end of the former Vice President’s respite after the Democratic National Convention.
Jesse Jackson, who changed his legal residence to South Carolina and is considering running against Senator Strom Thurmond, attended a voter registration drive in Selma, Alabama, once called the most segregated city in America by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Meanwhile, Dan Fowler, a member of the Democratic National Committee, said Jackson’s chances against Thurmond are “minimal.”
Rep. James R. Jones (D-Oklahoma), chairman of the House Budget Committee, said the government soon will be using half of all the personal income tax revenues just to pay interest on the national debt. Jones said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation” that he agrees with Democratic presidential nominee Walter F. Mondale that tackling the problem of the deficit will require increased revenues as well as cutbacks in the growth of government spending. But Rep. Jack Kemp (R-New York) said he believes there is a third way — increasing revenues through a continuing growth in the economy and encouraging economic expansion.
Three men convicted of the 1972 Watergate break-in said they did it because they believed former South Dakota Senator George S. McGovern was a Communist sympathizer with ties to Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the Weather Underground. Bernard Barker, Frank Sturgis, and Virgilio Gonzales, interviewed on a Miami television talk show, said they never received money for their “surreptitious entry” of the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
The bitter strike at Phelps Dodge in Arizona appears to have been lost, according to some of the members of the 12 unions that went on strike at the Phelps Dodge copper mines on July 1, 1983. The mines have been kept operating by nonunion workers. Many strikers remain intransigent, but some union members say they fear the strike appears lost. A defeat would be a severe blow for the American labor movement. Efforts have begun to decertify the striking unions, meaning they no longer would represent the miners. Hearings before the National Labor Relations Board are scheduled to begin July 30. Phelps Dodge expects elections to deprive the unions of their status as collective bargaining agents to be “as soon as September” and predicts the unions will lose.
The National Parks are threatened by raw materials exploitation, air and water pollution and encroaching urbanization. As the Reagan Administration was spending $1 billion refurbishing roads, trails and other accommodations for visitors, National Park Service officials, conservationists and members of Congress came to the conclusion that in the long run pressures from outside their boundaries threaten the very existence of many of the parks as natural systems.
Middle-class black families living in predominantly white suburbs feel accepted, while maintaining strong ties to the black community, according to new research on the social and psychological reactions of those families. The findings challenge the view that members of ethnic and racial minorities living in white communities run the risk of being alienated from or rejected by both the minority and majority communities.
An invasion of billions of mosquitoes, headed toward Savannah, Georgia, was delayed by two days because of heavy rains. Officials said that when the mosquitoes arrive, their numbers would be so great that 20 to 25 would land on an unprotected person every minute.
Most of the 160 persons released from the Nashville jail, where they were incarcerated for 48 hours for violating the toughest drunk driving law in the nation, vowed they will not return. The 160 inmates — all men — were released at intervals upon completion of the minimum 48-hour sentence, officials said. Most spent their jail time picking up trash off roadways.
Fred Waring died of a stroke in a hospital in Danville, Pennsylvania. He and his orchestra, the Pennsylvanians, had entertained Americans for 68 years on the radio, in movies, on Broadway and on television. He was 84 years old.
Canadian Open Women’s Golf (du Maurier Classic), St. George’s CC: Juli Inkster wins by 1 from Ayako Okamoto of Japan.
Mike Boddicker allowed two singles in 8⅔ innings and Gary Roenicke contributed a solo home run to help the Baltimore Orioles defeat the Cleveland Indians, 3–1, today. Boddicker (12–8) allowed singles by Andre Thornton in the second inning and Julio Franco in the fourth. He was one out from shutting out the Indians for the second time in two starts this season. Boddicker struck out seven and walked two. Steve Comer (2–5) yielded a run in the second inning when Wayne Gross singled to end an 0-for-11 slump, took third on a single by Roenicke and scored as Rich Dauer grounded into a double play. Roenicke hit his sixth home run in the sixth. Two-out doubles by Floyd Rayford and Al Bumbry made it 3–0.
Milt Wilcox (11–6) allowed the Boston Red Sox only three singles in eight innings, struck out four and did not walk a batter, as the Detroit Tigers shut out the Red Sox, 3–0. Wilcox, aided by two double plays, did not allow a runner beyond first base. Willie Hernandez pitched the ninth inning and got his 21st save. The loser, Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd (5–8), pitched a four-hitter, striking out 10 batters, a career high, while walking three in a losing effort.
The Minnesota Twins edged the California Angels, 6–5, in extra innings. Tim Teufel’s two-out single drove in Dave Engle in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Twins a sweep of the three-game series. With one out in the 10th, Dave Engle doubled off Luis Sanchez (7–3). Sanchez then intentionally walked Kent Hrbek, who drove in three runs with two homers. Randy Bush grounded out to first, advancing both runners, and Teufel followed with a single to right that made a winner of the reliever, Rick Lysander (1–1). The series pushed the Twins’ over the one million attendance mark for the earliest time in the club’s history.
Mike Moore scattered six hits, and Dave Henderson and Ken Phelps hit solo home runs for the Seattle Mariners, who beat Oakland, 4–1. The victory gave Seattle a sweep of the three-game series, in which Oakland had only 17 hits and four runs. The A’s, who have dropped 12 of their last 16 games, did not score until Dave Kingman and Carney Lansford doubled in the ninth inning.
The New York Mets took their grandest tumble of the season yesterday before 50,443 fans in Shea Stadium when they scored only one run in 18 innings and lost a doubleheader to the Chicago Cubs. They managed only seven hits in the opener and lost it, 3–0, when Steve Trout outpitched Walt Terrell for his first shutout in four years. Then they managed only five hits off Scott Sanderson and Lee Smith in the second game and lost that one, 5–1, after Jody Davis nailed Bruce Berenyi for a three-run home run. So, after taking the opening game of the series and winning their seventh in a row, the Mets suffered a stunning reversal and lost three in a row. And their lead in the National League’s East, which widened to 4½ games Friday, suddenly dwindled to 1½.
The first two Philadelphia Phillies batters — Juan Samuel and Von Hayes — greet the Montreal Expo’s Bill Gullickson with home runs. Hayes adds another homer and the Phils win on a 2-run pinch homer by John Matuszek in the 9th, 6–4. Ivan DeJesus drew a one-out walk before Matuszek hit a 2–2 pitch over the right-field fence for his ninth homer. Kevin Gross pitched the ninth inning to raise his record to 6–5. Jeff Reardon (3–4) was the loser in relief.
Orel Hershiser retired the first 23 batters he faced before Nick Esasky ruined his bid for a perfect game with a two-out single in the eighth inning today, and settled for a two-hitter as the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Cincinnati Reds, 1–0. Hershiser (7–4), who has five victories since breaking into the starting rotation on June 29, pitched his fifth complete game and fourth shutout of the season. It was his third two-hitter of the month. The 25-year-old rookie right-hander struck out seven and walked none. He had only two scares before Esasky’s hit.
The Atlanta Braves edged the San Francisco Giants, 4–3. Dale Murphy and Bruce Benedict belted home runs to lead Atlanta. Pascual Perez (10–4) gave up seven hits and all three San Francisco runs before leaving in the sixth inning. Gene Garber held the Giants scoreless for the final four innings to get his fourth save.
Tim Lollar fires a 2-hitter and Steve Garvey and Gary Templeton homer as the San Diego Padres douse the Houston Astros, 9–0. Templeton’s homer is a grand slam off starter Mike LaCoss in the 6th. Tim Lollar, winning for the first time in a month, walked 5 batters and struck out 7 to improve his record to 8–9 for the Padres, who have won 8 of their last 11 games.
The U.S. won five gold medals, four in swimming and one in cycling at the beginning of the Summer Games of the XXIII Olympiad in Los Angeles. Two pistol sharpshooters from China won the gold medal and the bronze in the men’s free pistol, the first Olympic medals for China in any sport. For 15 hours, there was competition in 12 sports in the Los Angeles stadium, elsewhere in California, and in soccer stadiums in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Annapolis, Maryland.
The last time American women swimmers competed in an Olympics, they did not win a gold medal. They won two in one race when Nancy Hogshead of Jacksonville, Florida, and Carrie Steinseifer of Saratoga, California, finished in the first dead heat in Olympic swimming history in the 100-meter freestyle. Each thus earned a gold medal in an event where East German women have the 14 fastest times in history. Tracy Caulkins of Nashville, who returned prestige to American women swimmers in 1978 when she won five gold medals and one silver at the world championships, won her first Olympic gold medal by capturing the 400- meter individual medley, in the process setting her 62nd American record. Steve Lundquist of Jonesboro, Georgia, set a world record in winning the men’s 100-meter breast- stroke. John Moffet, the holder of the old mark and the fastest qualifier earlier in the day, suffered a recurrence of a groin injury and finished fifth in the final. The only non-American swimming victor of the first day was Michael Gross of West Germany, who broke his world record in the 200-meter freestyle. Michael Heath of Dallas took the silver.
Born:
Chad Billingsley, American MLB pitcher (All-Star, 2009; Los Angeles Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies), in Defiance, Ohio.
Mark Hamilton, MLB pinch hitter, first baseman, and outfielder (St. Louis Cardinals), in Baltimore, Maryland.
J. Madison Wright Morris, American child actress (“Earth 2”, “ER”) and heart transplant patient, in Cincinnati, Ohio (d, 2006, of a heart attack.
Died:
Fred Waring, 84, American bandleader, conductor, and Waring Blender namesake.
Woodrow Parfey, 61, American actor (“Time Express”), of a heart attack.
[Ed: This is their third anniversary, and the honeymoon is decidedly over.]
History Diaries 