With U.S. minesweeping forces steaming toward Red Sea shipping lanes off Egypt and Saudi Arabia, there is still no evidence to determine who planted explosives in the waters, according to Reagan Administration officials. Michael I. Burch, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said the USS Shreveport, an amphibious transport dock loaded with four RH-53D minesweeper helicopters and 200 servicemen, was in the Mediterranean today and would arrive in the Gulf of Suez later this week. The airlift of three helicopters and about 120 men from Norfolk, Virginia, directly to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, was completed Monday night, he added. Mr. Burch said Egyptian forces and American personnel on board the Harkness, a Navy oceanographic research vessel, have had no success in discovering the cause of 17 explosions reported by commercial vessels in the Red Sea in July and August. He said efforts were hampered last weekend by rough seas and high winds.
Nonetheless, the Saudi request for American assistance was “both precautionary and prudent,” Mr. Burch said, adding that there was “lots of nervousness and concern” about keeping the ports of Jidda and Yenbo open during the current migration of Moslem pilgrams to religious shrines in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Burch said Saudi Arabia was coordinating its efforts with American and French minesweeping forces, while the Egyptians were working with Americans in the Gulf of Suez. Minesweeping operations in the southern Red Sea do not as yet involve Navy forces, he said, adding that there have been diplomatic but not military contacts with Yemen.
A spokesman at the French Embassy in Washington said two French minehunting vessels reached Port Said, at the entrance to the Suez Canal, today. They will be joined by two more such ships within 10 days, he said. He stressed that deployment of the vessels depended on the requests of local governments, given that France does not consider itself part of a multinational force. The British Embassy confirmed that four Royal Navy minesweeping vessels entered the Suez Canal today.
Solidarity founder Lech Walesa walked silently to the workers’ monument at Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk. Poland, and knelt in prayer as he placed flowers to mark the fourth anniversary of the strikes that spawned the outlawed union. He was surrounded by about 200 supporters and shipyard workers. Walesa said he decided to mark the anniversary quietly because the government amnesty for political prisoners has created a new situation in Poland. Lech Walesa said today that the outlawed Solidarity union was reassessing its role and that it would be unwise to stage demonstrations or provoke authorities after a Government amnesty last month freed hundreds of political prisoners. “The amnesty is a step” in the right direction, he said. “Let’s not disturb the second step.”
A new UNESCO-Washington dispute has erupted over $80 million in unspent funds, a quarter of it from the United States, according to diplomats. The money has accumulated in a special account that is used to offset the impact of exchange rate fluctations on the budget of the Paris-based United Nations agency, which the United States is threatening to leave next year.
Bombs exploded in two Renault showrooms in Madrid and Barcelona today, causing damage but no casualties. The police said the bombings might be linked to recent attacks by Basque separatists on French businesses after a crackdown on Spanish Basque militants living in France.
Northern Ireland Secretary James Prior acknowledged that the British government made a “bad mistake” in banning an American supporter of the outlawed Irish Republican Army from the province. The ban, against Martin Galvin, publicity director of the New York-based Irish Northern Aid (Noraid), led to a police raid on an Irish nationalist rally, leaving one person dead and 20 wounded. Meanwhile, in New York, Mayor Edward I. Koch asked city investigators to determine whether Galvin violated his responsibility as a Sanitation Department attorney by appearing at the rally.
An unidentified submarine dragged a British trawler around the English Channel, eight miles off England’s southwest coast, for three hours today after becoming entangled in its nets. The Royal Navy said the submarine involved was definitely a foreign vessel. Military officials said it probably belonged to the Soviet Union or another Warsaw Pact country. The 34-ton trawler Joanna C, fishing off the Devon port of Brixham, netted the unidentified submarine two hours before dawn just outside British territorial waters. Despite steaming full ahead, the trawler’s captain, John Green, said he found his vessel being dragged backward in various directions at speeds of up to three knots. An order came through three hours later for the crew to cut the nets.
President Reagan’s quip on Saturday about outlawing and bombing the Soviet Union was seized upon by the Soviet press as proof that his sentiments have not changed.
The departure of Valerian D. Trifa for Portugal on Monday under a deportation order was announced by the Justice Department. The departure of the 70-year-old head of the Rumanian Orthodox Church in America ended a nine-year legal effort by the department to deport him for lying to conceal his part in persecution of Jews and collaboraton with Nazi Germany in Rumania.
Radical Libya and conservative Morocco announced plans for a political union, one that appears to be an answer to an alliance between Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania. Libya and Morocco-which lie 700 miles apart-described their treaty as a move toward an eventual union of all five of the North African states that are known as the Maghreb. It was not immediately clear what form the LibyanMoroccan union would take. Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, an advocate of Arab unity, has failed in earlier attempts to unite Libya with Egypt, Syria and Tunisia.
Rebels killed more than 350 Soviet and Afghan government soldiers in attacks on Soviet convoys trying to open a supply route south of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, Western diplomats reported in New Delhi. In earlier fighting around Kabul, Afghan guerrillas killed more than 200 Soviet occupation troops and their Afghan allies, the diplomats said. “The unprecedented surge in fighting … is taking its toll in (Soviet) soldiers, material, and possibly the morale of troops,” one diplomat said.
Two sons of Pakistan’s executed former prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and 96 other people were charged with conspiring to overthrow the military government of President Zia ul-Haq, Pakistani legal and journalistic sources said. Bhutto’s sons, Murtaza, 29, and Shah Nawaz, 25, and a number of the other defendants are in exile and will be tried in absentia. The military trial will be closed to the public. Zia seized power in July, 1977, after deposing Bhutto, who was later hanged.
South Korea freed 1,016 prisoners under a sweeping amnesty in honor of the country’s National Liberation Day. The pardoned prisoners were released from 30 prisons around the country. Today is the 39th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II.
China said today that South Korea and Taiwan had violated international treaties against air piracy when Seoul released six Chinese hijackers and Taipei gave them asylum and cash rewards. South Korea, which has no diplomatic ties with China, released the hijackers Monday. The five men and one woman then were flown to Taiwan, where they were welcomed as heroes and given cash rewards. The six hijacked a Chinese domestic jetliner May 5, 1983, and diverted it to Seoul, where they were sentenced to jail terms ranging between four and six years on charges of violating South Korean air-safety laws.
Two major Colombian guerrilla groups said today that they would agree to a cease-fire with the Government this month despite a recent upsurge of violence. Spokesmen for the April 19 Movement, or M-19, and the People’s Liberation Army told radio stations that they would sign the truce on August 23. The signing was to have taken place this week but was delayed after unidentified gunmen shot dead a founding member of M-19 last week. The movement retaliated with an attack on the town of Yumbo, where 42 people were killed. Colombia’s biggest leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, signed a yearlong truce in May.
Peru’s President Fernando Belaunde Terry declared martial law in 13 Andean mountain provinces where two weeks of guerrilla violence has left 131 people dead, 15 of them children whose throats, the government said, were cut by rebels. The government said the Andean region was targeted for attacks by Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), a Maoist rebel band, because residents have refused to join the insurgents. Meanwhile, the pastor in a mountain village charged that soldiers searching for rebels dragged six men from his church and shot them to death.
The battle over the tax plank in the Republican campaign platform was apparently resolved with the adoption of a compromise that opposes tax increases in vigorous terms. As platform writers started working over a draft document that is to be presented to the party’s national convention next week, the subcommittee on economic issues approved a pledge to “oppose any attempt to increase taxes” in the future. In another place, the document says Republicans “categorically reject proposals to increase taxes.” The original draft of the platform, prepared under the guidance of the White House, was slightly less adamant in its opposition to taxes. But the subcommittee strengthened the language today by inserting a comma and adding a statement asserting that the Republicans “now foresee no economic circumstances which would call for increased taxes.”
The public opinion polls have disagreed widely on voters’ attitudes toward the two major national tickets, and the discrepancies seem greater than ever before. Many experts believe that public ambiguity about President Reagan’s policies, the nomination of the first woman as a Vice-Presidential candidate and a continued weakening of traditional party loyalties make for unusually volatile public attitudes this year. Other experts believe that methodological problems are the underlying cause of conflicting findings.
An unexpected surge of volunteers to work for the Democratic national ticket, the vast majority of them women, has been generated by the nomination of Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro as the party’s Vice-Presidential candidate, in the opinion of many politicians.
The Reagans’ daughter was married to Paul Grilley, a yoga instructor, in a Los Angeles hotel in a private ceremony attended by President and Mrs. Reagan and 130 relatives and friends. The bride, Patti Davis, is a 31-year-old actress. Mr. Reagan escorted his daughter down the aisle and had only five words to say in the ceremony. Asked by the Rev. Donn Moomaw of the Bel-Air Presbyterian Church who was giving away the bride, the President’s response was: “Her mother and I do.”
An L.A.P.D. officer credited with disarming a bomb on a bus filled with the luggage of Turkish Olympic athletes at Los Angeles International Airport was later arrested for planting the device, police officials announced. The officer, James W. Pearson, 40 years old, was booked today for possession of a destructive device. The police said he had admitted placing the small, metallic bomb loaded with smokeless gunpowder in the wheel well of the bus, which was filled with the luggage of Turkish Olympic athletes. Investigators said they became suspicious of Officer Pearson after noticing inconsistencies in his account of how he had defused the bomb. “This is particularly sad,” said Daryl F. Gates, Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, at a news conference. “He had a remarkable record; he had numerous commendations.” He added that investigators believed Officer Pearson had planted the bomb to get attention from his superiors. “He indicated he was having problems with his superiors at Metro Division,” Chief Gates said. “We have all noticed him at this point.”
Voters in Georgia’s statewide primary yesterday gave Representative Wyche Fowler a early lead in balloting in that Democratic Congressional race. Mr. Fowler the incumbent lead his chief challenger civil rights activist Hosea Williams. In the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Sam Nunn held a large lead over his lone challenger. Julian Bond, also an incumbent held a small lead in balloting for a seat he holds in the Georgia state Senate.
A local welfare board in Deptford, New Jersey, has halted an unemployed, disabled Vietnam veteran’s benefits because he refused to cut the agency in on his share of a proposed settlement for victims of Agent Orange exposure. Former Marine Private Sylvester Hunter was named as one of thousands of possible beneficiaries of a $180 million fund proposed May 7 by seven chemical companies to settle a court suit in which veterans claimed the firms were liable for their exposure to the jungle defoliant Agent Orange. A judge has yet to approve the settlement and is still holding hearings on it. But Hunter said Gloucester County welfare officials asked him several weeks ago to promise the board his share as repayment for benefits the agency had provided him.
Secretary John R. Block has “systematically sabotaged” the Agriculture Department’s nutrition information programs, a public interest group charged. The group, Public Citizen, issued a report asserting that President Reagan and Block “have stubbornly ignored all the evidence that supports nutrition education and the vigorous promotion of dietary guidelines.” It said the Administration has deferred to requests of food industries. Block vehemently denied the charge.
Latino leaders warned that a run-down neighborhood in Lawrence, Massachusetts, scarred by two nights of firebombing between whites and Latinos, could erupt again unless officials swiftly remove conditions that led to the riots. “You think everything is quiet. It’s not, so we have to move quickly,” Isabel Melendez, a leader of the newly formed “Peace Alliance,” told a meeting of local residents and the Lawrence City Council. Nine persons were arrested, but the streets of the troubled Tower Hill neighborhood were mostly quiet the first night after city officials lifted a three-day curfew.
Sotheby’s auction house in New York illegally sold $1.45 million worth of rare Hebrew books and manuscripts smuggled out of Nazi Germany in the 1940s, the state attorney general charged. Attorney General Robert Abrams has filed a lawsuit against the prestigious firm seeking to nullify the sale, reimburse the buyers and turn the books over to an institution where they will be available to the public. The lawsuit concerns 59 rare Hebrew books and manuscripts that belonged to a Berlin rabbinical seminary.
A railroad tank car containing flammable sodium chlorate derailed with five other cars and burst into flames in an industrial area of the Atlanta suburb of Tucker. No injuries were reported in the 8:30 pm derailment, but authorities said businesses and residences were evacuated within 2,500 feet of the site. Firefighters put out the fire and cleanup crews had the spilled chemical contained in a drainage ditch, authorities said. Sodium chlorate is a highly flammable chemical that is irritating to the eyes and skin.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is searching nationwide for a man described as a “loner” in the disappearance of a newspaper carrier. Federal agents said today that there might be “a definite connection” to the disappearance of another paper carrier in Des Moines in 1982. Eugene Martin, whose 14th birthday is Friday, vanished early Sunday as he was about to deliver copies of The Des Moines Register. A fellow newsboy, Johnny Gosch, disappeared from his route on September 5, 1982, and has not been heard from since. The authorities said they were treating the Martin case as a kidnapping and had issued a nationwide bulletin for a man described as between 30 and 40 years old, 5 feet, 9 inches, clean shaven and with a medium build. “Generally, the person is an introvert, a loner who may or may not be extra guilt-ridden on what he does but will not turn himself in,” said Herb Hawkins, special FBI agent in charge of the Nebraska-Iowa field office. He said some useful information was being gleaned from witnesses.
An illegal alien couple found by immigration officials when their picture was published because they won a house in a charity drawing were ordered today to return to Mexico within four months. O. John Brahos, an immigration judge in Chicago, ruled that Jose Carmona, 29 years old, and his wife, Silvia, 24, were subject to deportation. But despite the objections of a Government attorney, he granted their request to be allowed to leave the United States voluntarily rather than be deported and gave them until December 14. By avoiding deportation, the couple remain eligible to seek a visa to return to the United States. Mr. Carmona, a roofer whose four young children are United States citizens, said after the hearing: “I just feel terrible. It’s a bad day for us.”
Relentless thunderstorms drenched parts of the East for a fifth day and threatened more flooding in the ravaged Appalachians, where seven persons have been lost in streams swollen by up to 10 inches of rain that has stranded hundreds. High winds in Crossett, Arkansas, ripped the roof off an airport hangar and destroyed seven planes, with damage totaling up to $1 million, officials said. Forecasters said much of the nation would feel the wet weather that has plagued Maryland, Pennsylvania and the Virginias since Friday. In Oak Hill, West Virginia, a raft carrying six persons capsized in the New River, killing two men. Forecasters said the stubborn storm system was expected to hang over the East for another 24 hours, then move slowly northeast and into the Atlantic.
J. B. Priestley died at his home in Stratford-on-Avon at the age of 89. The British novelist and playwright described the English personality and temperament through character portraits — often with deft and humorous political overtones.
IBM releases PC DOS version 3.0.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1214.11 (-5.97).
Born:
Clay Buchholz, MLB pitcher (World Series Champions-Red Sox, 2013; All-Star, 2010, 2013; Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks, Toronto Blue Jays), in Nederland, Texas.
Nevin Ashley, MLB catcher and pinch hitter (Milwaukee Brewers), in Vincennes, Indiana.
Josh Gorges, Canadian NHL defenseman (San Jose Sharks, Montreal Canadiens, Buffalo Sabres), in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.
Steven Harris, NFL defensive tackle (Denver Broncos), in Homestead, Florida.
Nick Grimshaw, English DJ and television presenter, in England, United Kingdom.
Died:
J. B. Priestly, 89, English novelist and scriptwriter (The Good Companions, An Inspector Calls).
(John) “Bobo” Jenkins, 68, American blues singer-songwriter (Democrat Blues).
History Diaries 