A desire for better U.S.-Soviet ties has been reaffirmed by President Reagan and Konstantin U. Chernenko, the Soviet leader, in separate letters, according to copies of the letters released in Dublin. The two leaders were replying to letters written by Sean MacBride, winner of the Nobel and Lenin peace prizes and currently president of the Geneva-based International Peace Bureau.
Any talks between the Soviet Union and the United States should be based on “sincere good intentions” and appropriate preparations, Mr. Chernenko said in his letter to Mr. MacBride, according to a text released here late Saturday by Tass, the Soviet press agency. The Soviet Union would like to have good relations with the United States, Mr. Chernenko said, but is looking for “concrete deeds, not words,” from Washington. “An appropriate will on both sides should be displayed in this question,” he went on.
During a radio voice test, U.S. President Reagan jokes he “signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in 5 minutes.” The joke was not broadcast live, but was recorded and later leaked to the public. The Soviet Union criticized the joke, as did Reagan’s opponent in the 1984 United States presidential election, Walter Mondale. Reagan’s poll numbers took a hit from the political gaffe, temporarily raising the hopes of Walter Mondale’s supporters in the 1984 United States presidential election campaign. Mondale said of Reagan’s joke, “A [p]resident has to be very, very careful with his words.” However, in the analysis of Reagan historian Craig Shirley, the leak of Reagan’s joke was poorly used by the Democratic Party: “[criticism of the joke] actually worked against the Democrats and for Reagan […] as they came across as hypersensitive, and Reagan as calm, cool and collected.”
[Ed: As one whose humor is so dark it can only be detected via its accretion disk, So What?]
Abortion should not be promoted as a family planning method, it was decided by delegates to the United Nations International Conference on Population in Mexico City. The language was accepted by the conference’s main committee after the delegates turned back a more restrictive proposal by the Vatican, which urged a recommendation that “abortion should be excluded as a method of family planning.” The inclusion of even the less restrictive language was viewed here as a victory for the United States and the Vatican, which have expressed the strongest antiabortion sentiments at the conference. The United States, in a speech Wednesday by the leader of its delegation, James L. Buckley, said it would no longer provide family planning funds to non-Government organizations “which perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning.”
The Soviet press asserted today that West Germany was moving away from the “letter and spirit” of the Moscow Treaty signed 14 years ago, which laid the foundations of West German-Soviet détente. A dispatch carried by the Soviet press agency Tass on the eve of the anniversary of the signing charged that Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democratic Government had called into question the central principle of the treaty, the inviolability of the postwar European borders. Tass said that “realistically minded circles,” along with the West German public, “being deeply alarmed with this course, which is fraught with extremely dangerous consequences for the European peoples, above all for West Germany itself, declare for the return to the policy of détente, for the observance of the principles of the Moscow Treaty, for discarding the policy of militarism and revanchism.”
The Polish government has released Jan Rulewski, the last of seven senior officials of the outlawed Solidarity trade union movement to be freed from jail under an amnesty for political prisoners. The 40-year-old former Solidarity leader in the city of Bydgoszcz had decried the amnesty and said after his release that he considered it “an act of lawlessness.” But he added that “it shows the way for further struggle for at least justice, respect for law and Solidarity.” Reached by telephone at his apartment in Bydgoszcz, a city 150 miles northwest of Warsaw, Mr. Rulewski said the police drove him home from Rakowiecka prison in the capital Friday afternoon. Mr. Rulewski, 38 years old, said he was in good health and was relaxing. Asked if he planned to meet with Lech Walesa, the founder of Solidarity, he said, “Any time Walesa calls me, I shall go on my knees to my leader.”
Thousands of wives of striking coal miners marched through London today to demonstrate their support for the 22- week-old walkout. The women, many with their children, silently laid black flowers along Whitehall, Britain’s street of government, before staging a rally in a London park.
Iraq said it had destroyed five ships and shot down three Iranian F-14 jets near the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. A military spokesman in Baghdad said five “large naval targets” had been left blazing in the sea and three planes that had been protecting an “enemy naval convoy” had plunged into the gulf. There was no immediate comment from Iran. Today’s action was said to have taken place over Khor Musa, the channel leading to Iran’s main southern port of Bandar Khomeini, site of a large oil and chemical complex at the head of the gulf.
Meanwhile, the official Polish press agency, P.A.P., announced that a Polish cargo ship hit a mine this morning at the mouth of the Red Sea. More than a dozen ships have been reported damaged by explosives in Red Sea waters recently. The Jozef Wybicki, a 5,713-ton vessel en route to the Saudi Arabian port of Jidda, suffered damage in its engine room, the Polish agency said. The blast brought the ship to a standstill, but there were no casualties among the crew, the agency said.
Senior Israeli officers serving in southern Lebanon have presented a detailed plan for the withdrawal of Israeli troops within six to eight weeks, Israel radio and defense sources disclosed. The plan, which the radio said was proposed to Defense Minister Moshe Arens, would reportedly not leave Israel’s northern settlements vulnerable to attack. No details were available. Yosef Rom, a member of Parliament with the ruling Likud bloc, demanded an investigation to determine how the story on the plan was leaked.
Four of the 30 Libyans who returned home after a 10-day siege in their London embassy last April have been executed because the shooting of a British policewoman made their government look bad, the Daily Express of London reported, quoting an unspecified intelligence report. The British Foreign Office said it had no knowledge of the reported executions. No one has been charged in the policewoman’s death, which was attributed to shots fired from inside the embassy during an anti-Libyan demonstration and which led to the breaking of British-Libyan diplomatic relations.
The Indian government, concerned about terrorist activity in Punjab, will propose a constitutional amendment to maintain federal control over the northern state for another year, officials said in New Delhi. The amendment requires a two-thirds majority in the Parliament. It would extend the emergency measure, first adopted in October of last year, through October, 1985.
Six Sri Lankan soldiers were killed today when a jeep hit a land mine laid by Tamil separatists, the authorities said. The incident brought the death toll in a week of violence to 57. The ambush occurred near Mannar on Sri Lanka’s northwestern coast, officials said. They said the victims were the first deaths of army men. The officials also said eight unidentified bodies were found today in Jaffna, capital of the Tamil-dominated Northern Province. Residents also said a taxi driver had been killed and seven people injured in two incidents of shooting by the armed forces. Officials believe the eight bodies were those of victims of rivalry among about six separatist groups. There was no immediate comment from Tamil leaders.
All 14 members of the Cabinet of Costa Rican President Luis Alberto Monge resigned, making way for a reorganization following widespread accusations of government corruption. Business and labor leaders have been publicly criticizing the administration in recent weeks, claiming that corruption is rife. At a news briefing earlier last week, Government Minister Alfonso Carro Zuniga said the charges had some foundation and that he is urging Monge to investigate them.
The Bolivian government says two neo-Nazis in custody received instructions from Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie on how to organize paramilitary groups and seize power. The two, Bolivian Alvaro de Castro and Italian Emilio Carbone, were arrested in La Paz last week. Juan Mendez, the Interior Ministry’s intelligence chief, said the government had intercepted letters to De Castro from Barbie, who is in prison in France awaiting trial for the murders of hundreds of Jews during World War II. He had lived in Bolivia for 32 years until he was deported in February, 1983, by the government of President Hernan Siles Zuazo.
Uruguay’s military government says it will release more than 150 political prisoners, making good on a promise it made to political groups during recent negotiations on returning the country to civilian rule. A government communique said the Supreme Military Council had reviewed the cases of 400 people imprisoned for subversion and had decided to free 154 of them. But it will keep another 181 in jail and has not made a final decision in the other 65 cases, it added.
Chadian rebels fighting the Government of President Hissen Habre said today that they had captured the Defense Minister. Facho Balaam, secretary general of the National Democratic and Popular Union, one of several guerrilla factions, gave no details in the announcement made at a meeting here in the capital of Bourkina Fasso, formerly Upper Volta. In a Government reorganization last month, Defense Minister Routouane Yoma was transferred to the Justice Ministry. Mr. Habre took over Defense but appointed a Captain N’Dilnodji as minister-delegate.
Zimbabwe’s ruling party adopted a new party constitution calling for the creation of a Marxist-oriented, one-party Government. Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s ruling party adopted a new party constitution today calling for the creation of a Marxist-oriented, one-party state in this Western-modeled democracy. The party decided that the transformation would take place “in the fullness of time and in accordance with the law and the Constitution.” The formula appeared to have been designed by the congress to assuage fears among Western aid donors, potential investors and the nation’s economically pivotal white minority that single-party rule was imminent. The party congress, the first in 20 years, ended tonight. Some 6,000 delegates attended.
The USSR performs an underground nuclear test.
President Reagan participates in a national radio address on Congressional action regarding legislative proposals. President Reagan signed into law a measure prohibiting public high schools from banning student gatherings outside class hours for religiious or political purposes. In his regular weekly radio address, paid for by his re-election campaign, Mr. Reagan said the legislation he signed this morning “will allow student religious groups to begin enjoying a right they’ve too long been denied, the freedom to meet in public high schools during nonschool hours, just as other student groups are allowed to do.”
The Senate has approved a four-year, $40-million program to combat the problem of missing children. The program, contained in a package of changes and additions to the 1968 Omnibus Crime Control Act, was approved by voice vote without dissent. It now goes to the House, which has adopted its own series of changes in anti-crime legislation. The missing children program would establish the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It would provide a toll-free telephone number for persons with information about a missing child and for parents searching for missing children.
Jesse Jackson called his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination an “assignment” from Operation PUSH and called on Chicago PUSH members to pay off his remaining $500,000 campaign debt. “The Jackson for President Campaign wants Chicago to pay the lion’s share,” Jackson told a crowd of about 500 supporters. “I didn’t just run for President; PUSH gave me an assignment. We must pay off our own debt.”
An overnight curfew brought peace to a Lawrence, Massachusetts, neighborhood shattered by two nights of violent skirmishes between Latinos and whites, and officials voted to continue the curfew Saturday. Police officers patrolled the four-block Tower Hill neighborhood Friday night and community leaders drove around with loudspeakers, urging residents to stay indoors. Twenty-eight persons were arrested for violating the curfew and related charges, but police reported no major disturbances.
Interior Secretary William P. Clark named a 12-member commission to decide whether changes should be made in a $1.2-billion irrigation project under fire from environmentalists. The Garrison Diversion project, begun in the 1960s and about one-fourth completed, would divert Missouri River water for the irrigation of 250,000 acres of North Dakota farmland and municipal and industrial use. Environmental groups in the United States and authorities in Canada argue that the project could contaminate streams and ruin commercial and recreational fishing. Former Louisiana Governor David C. Treen will head the commission.
The Veterans Administration said it will reduce the maximum interest rate on VA home loans to 13.5% from 14%, effective Monday. The one-half percentage point reduction is the first drop in the rate since November 1, 1983, and will mean monthly savings of about $24 on an average VA loan of $61,000, the agency said.
Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. of the District of Columbia had “a personal relationship” with a city employee much of the time she admits selling cocaine, according to Mr. Barry’s lawyer. In an interview published today in The Washington Post, Herbert O. Reid Sr., the lawyer, said, however, that Mr. Barry did not know that the employee, Karen K. Johnson, was involved with drugs and never bought drugs from her. She is serving a four-month sentence after pleading guility to charges of selling cocaine.
Mr. Reid was quoted as saying that the relationship lasted 12 to 18 months and ended in the autumn of 1982. Over that period, Miss Johnson worked in the District Energy Office and also did campaign work for Mr. Barry, Mr. Reid said. Mr. Barry has said he knew her only in passing. Mr. Reid said United States Attorney Joseph diGenova had failed to gather evidence against Mr. Barry and was now seeking to discredit the Mayor with disclosures to the press. Mr. diGenova refused to comment
[Ed: Riiiiiight. Bitch gonna set you up, Fool.]
An oil spill that blackened the beaches of the resort city of Galveston, Texas last week has cut tourism so severely that officials have mounted an advertising campaign to lure revelers back. Tourists, who normally pump an estimated $1 million a day into the Galveston economy, have been staying away, with drive-in traffic from Houston off by 50 percent since last weekend, officials said. In an attempt to bring business back to normal, tourist officials have launched a $25,000 advertising campaign in Houston to persuade residents there to visit Galveston again this summer before schools open.
Although incompetent teachers are a major problem in public education, they seldom are fired because schools are wary of court fights that can cost upward of $100,000, a federal study said. The study, financed by the National Institute of Education, urges schools to develop written review systems to weed out incompetent teachers. Only about half the nation’s 16,000 school districts now have evaluation programs, and many are so poor that they likely would be unable to stand up in court, the study found.
A 10,000-gallon fuel tank exploded at a dock in Marathon, Florida today shooting a fireball hundreds of feet in the air, injuring four people and destroying a warehouse, mobile homes and boats, the authorities said. Local firefighters took two hours to extinguish the blaze on this island in the Florida Keys and hosed down two other fuel tanks to keep them from exploding, said Jerry Powell, spokesman for the Monroe County sheriff’s office. One man was admitted to Fishermen’s Hospital with burns on his upper body, while three firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation, hospital officials said. The blast and the fire leveled most of the 200-foot-long Pinellas Oil Dock on Boot Key Harbor, including a marine- parts warehouse and two mobile homes, Mr. Powell said. He said two fiberglass boats were melted to the water line.
John R. Block’s business ventures that won him instant credibility after he was appointed by President Reagan as Secretary of Agriculture have made him a target for Farm Belt Democrats. Candidates in several states have been using Mr. Block’s financial involvements as anecdotal evidence that the Administration is out of touch with the farmer.
The Reserve Officer Training Corps maintained by the Army has more than doubled its enrollment among college men and women since the end of the military draft in 1973. After hitting bottom after the Vietnam War with 33,220 cadets in 1974, enrollment has climbed almost steadily to 72,823 this year. The main reason for that climb has been fading of the memory of Vietnam.
The launching of satellites from three nations was postponed a second time today because the payloads may have been contaminated by strips of plastic that peeled off an air-conditioning hose. The satellites of the United States, Britain and West Germany were to have been sent into orbit to study the solar wind and earth’s magnetic fields. But technicians making a final checkup today said they had found about 10 plastic strips, up to 5 inches in length, inside the nose covering over the satellites. The strips were pieces of an aluminized insulation liner on an 8-inch-wide air-conditioning hose that cools the covering, officials said. The liftoff was canceled Thursday after a computer broke down at the West German space center near Munich.
Lightning-sparked range fires kept firefighters busy in southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon, where flames have scorched at least 155,000 acres, authorities reported. The fires sent columns of smoke 20,000 feet in the air over Oregon, and smoke darkened the Boise Valley in Idaho. Up to 250 firefighters were on the lines in Idaho, where at least 106,000 acres of rangeland were blackened. In Oregon, nearly 300 firefighters were battling five major fires and about a half dozen minor blazes, totaling about 49,000 acres.
Men’s choir Maranatha Netherlands forms.
101,799 fans attend a soccer match between Brazil and France.
Jack Morris, backed by three home runs, became the American League’s first 15-game winner tonight as the Detroit Tigers defeated the Kansas City Royals, 9–5. Morris, who has lost eight, allowed 11 hits in eight and two-thirds innings and struck out four. Aurelio Lopez got the final out. The Tigers’ 15-hit attack included home runs by Larry Herndon, Kirk Gibson and Lance Parrish and four hits by the designated hitter, Alan Trammell. Charlie Leibrandt (6–5) was driven from the mound in the sixth as the Tigers broke open a 3–2 game with three runs, including Gibson’s 19th homer, a one-out, two-run blast to right.
George Bell hit a two-run homer with none out in the ninth inning to give the Toronto Blue Jays a 3–2 victory over Baltimore. The Oriole starter, Storm Davis (12–5), entered the ninth with a five- hitter, but Rick Leach led off with a single and Bell hit Davis’s first pitch over the right-center field fence for his 16th homer of the season. The homer was only the fourth allowed by Davis this season. Jim Gott (6–5) worked the final two innings for the victory.
Dwight Evans drove in two runs with a homer and a single to lead Boston over the Texas Rangers, 5–4. Roger Clemens (7–4) went seven and one-third innings to win his fourth straight start. The rookie right- hander struck out six and walked three. Bob Stanley pitched the final one and two-thirds innings for his 17th save. Boston scored three runs in the seventh to take a 5–3 lead. Marty Barrett led off with a single and went to second on a walk by Jackie Gutierrez. Wade Boggs then hit his second double of the night to score Barrett and tie the score at 3–3. Mike Mason replaced Dave Stewart (4–12) and gave up a bloop single to Evans that scored Gutierrez with the go-ahead run.
The Cincinnati Reds retire Johnny Bench’s #5 uniform. Later it was the Houston Astros’ turn to celebrate, as they thumped the Reds, 8–2. Bill Doran scored the winning run from first in the seventh inning on a second critical error by the shortstop Tom Foley. Doran opened the seventh with a single, then put Houston ahead by 3–2 when Kevin Bass’s grounder went through Foley’s legs and rolled to the wall in left-center. Phil Garner’s sacrifice fly made it 4–2.
Keith Moreland hit a single to score Ryne Sandberg from third base with one out in the ninth inning to lift the Chicago Cubs to a 2–1 victory over the Montreal Expos today. After his leadoff single, Sandberg stole second and advanced to third when Gary Matthews flied to right. The Montreal starter, Charlie Lea (14–8), then walked Leon Durham intentionally before Moreland drilled a single back through the box to score Sandberg. Lee Smith (8–4) got the victory in relief of Dick Ruthven, who left the game with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Fittingly, and finally, the Mets’ six-game losing streak ended last night with Dwight Gooden adding to his list of strikeout milestones. In beating the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3–1, Gooden struck out 10 for his ninth double-digit strikeout game of the season, bringing his total to 181 and breaking Jerry Koosman’s 1968 record of 178 for a Met rookie. To obscene chants from some in the crowd of 28,326 at Shea Stadium, Manager Dave Johnson removed Gooden at the start of the eighth inning, after he had held the Pirates scoreless on five hits. Gooden’s reliever, Jesse Orosco, gave up a leadoff homer by Brian Harper and later in the inning loaded the bases with a pair of singles and a walk. The fans were briefly vindicated, but a strikeout and a groundout ended the threat and Orosco hung on for his 23rd save.
Mark Thurmond held Atlanta to four hits over seven innings and Graig Nettles belted his 13th home run to power the San Diego Padres to a 4–1 triumph over the Atlanta Braves. The victory, San Diego’s eighth in 11 games over Atlanta this season, increased the Padres’ lead in the National League West to 10½ games. It was the fifth straight victory for Thurmond (10–5), who extended a string of shutout innings to 24 before the Braves got their only run on Rufino Linares’s first homer of the season, leading off the seventh. Craig Lefferts relieved Thurmond at the start of the eighth and recorded his seventh save.
The Games of the XXIII Olympiad are expected to close tomorrow in the same atmosphere of euphoria that has prevailed in Los Angeles since they opened July 28. They have been the largest, best-attended Games in history, and for the United States, the most successful. They were also the first privately financed “free enterprise” Games.
Carl Lewis duplicates Jesse Owens’ 1936 feat, winning his 4th Olympic gold medal as part of the US 4 x 100m relay team; world record (37.83).
A British 1-2 in the 1,500m at the Los Angeles Olympics with Sebastian Coe edging teammate Steve Cram to become the only man to successfully defend his Olympic 1,500m title.
Future 4-weight world boxing champion Pernell Whitaker wins the lightweight gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics.
Ian Ferguson of New Zealand wins his 3rd canoeing gold medal of the LA Olympics taking out the K-4 1000 a day after victories in the K-1 500 & K-2 500.
Born:
Markis Kido, Indonesian badminton player (Olympic gold men’s doubles 2008 [with Hendra Setiawan]; World Championships gold 2007; World Cup gold 2006), in Jakarta, Indonesia (d. 2021).
Melky Cabrera, Dominican MLB Outfielder (World Series Champions-Yankees, 2009; All-Star, 2012; New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Kansas City Royals, San Francisco Giants, Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Pittsburgh Pirates), in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Lucas Di Grassi, Brazilian racing driver (Macau Grand Prix, 2005), in São Paulo, State of São Paulo, Brazil.
Katie Rees, American beauty pageant contestant (Miss Nevada USA, 2007), in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Died:
Alfred A. Knopf, 91, American publisher (1966 Alexander Hamilton Medal).
Pat McAuley, 40, Northern Irish rock keyboardist and drummer (Them, 1964-65 – “Here Comes The Night”; The Other Them, 1965-67).
Paul Felix Schmidt, 67, Estonian-German chess player.
Percy Mayfield, 63, American singer (“Hit the Road Jack”).
History Diaries 