Calling for “massive participation,” the underground leadership of Poland’s outlawed independent trade union Solidarity urged Poles to demonstrate support for the union on August 31, the fourth anniversary of its birth. Underground Solidarity leaders are urging Poles to show their support publicly for the banned union on the fourth anniversary of its founding, but they avoided calls for street protests. A message signed by all five members of the Provisional Coordinating Commission, which heads the union’s underground leadership, said the anniversary, August 31, “will be Solidarity’s holiday.” The statement, dated Tuesday, said, “We call on all cells of the union to organize celebrations,” and, “We call on all members and sympathizers to take part in them en masse.” It is the first time since Solidarity was suppressed by martial law in 1981 that the commission has not urged its supporters to mark a major anniversary with street demonstrations. However, former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, in a major split with the other leaders, urged that a confrontation with the regime be avoided. Walesa apparently fears that the government might reverse its recent decree of amnesty for 652 political prisoners, many of them Solidarity members.
Striking miners rampaged through several villages in northern England, fighting with police, throwing bricks at cars and putting up barricades to stop workers who wanted to return to their jobs. The strikers looted stores in the south Yorkshire villages of Bentley, Edlington and Armthorpe. About 30 were arrested throughout the country, authorities reported. The strike, now in its fifth month, began March 12 in protest against the National Coal Board’s plans to close 20 unprofitable mines and cut 20,000 jobs.
Newspapers in Ireland today sharply criticized Martin Galvin, the American supporter of the Irish Republican Army whose appearance at a Belfast rally last week preceded a police attack on a crowd in which one man was killed and 20 people were wounded. The Irish Independent, Ireland’s largest selling morning paper, said Mr. Galvin and other Irish-Americans who accompanied him were “deluded.” Another daily, The Irish Press, said his visit would increase donations by Americans to Irish nationalist terrorists and lead to more deaths. Mr. Galvin, a 34-year-old New York lawyer, is publicity director of the Irish Northern Aid Committee, known as Noraid. Although banned from visiting Northern Ireland, Mr. Galvin appeared at a rally in Belfast on August 12. The police, trying to arrest him, fired plastic bullets into a crowd. The Irish Times said Mr. Galvin had gone home “with one death to his name.”
U.S. and Soviet diplomats ended two days of consultations in Washington, and U.S. Ambassador James E. Goodby said the two sides may reach an agreement on European military forces, perhaps as early as next month’s Stockholm Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building- Measures. Goodby said the two sides discussed combining the longstanding Soviet proposal for a “non-use of force” pact with the U.S. desire for notification of troop movements and the presence of foreign observers at military exercises.
Rumors have surfaced in Moscow about the standing and health of the Soviet leader, Konstantin U. Chernenko. One rumor among Russians is that Mr. Chernenko, who will be 73 years old next month, interrupted his vacation in the south this month for medical treatment in a Moscow hospital. According to these rumors, which Western diplomats have been unable to verify, Mr. Chernenko’s condition is not serious. Western diplomats have taken note that since leaving for his vacation on July 15, Mr. Chernenko has entirely dropped from view. Diplomats recall that prolonged absences were the first signals of the failing health of Mr. Chernenko’s two predecessors. The Soviet leader, moreover, is believed to be suffering from emphysema.
Libya formally protested to Britain over the murder of a Libyan businessman in London and implied that British authorities were involved in the killing. The victim, Ali Giahour, 45, had been free on bail awaiting trial on charges of plotting bombings of Libyan exiles in Britain that wounded 26 people.
Shimon Peres signed a pact with Ezer Weizman, drawing the former Defense Minister and his party, which has three seats in Israel’s new Parliament, firmly into the Labor alignment. The agreement, reportedly a carefully constructed document, dealt a heavy blow to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s chances of continuing to govern. News of the agreement stunned leaders of Mr. Shamir’s Likud bloc who have been negotiating with Labor leaders over the establishment of a broadly based national unity government. Both sides have been equally active in seeking to form narrow coalitions after the inconclusive parliamentary elections on July 23.
Two more Soviet mine-hunting ships have arrived at the Suez Canal on their way to the Red Sea, Egyptian officials said.
An explosion killed at least five people today in downtown Tehran, the official Iranian press agency, IRNA, reported. “A severe explosion occurred at Railway Square, downtown Tehran, early this morning. Some five to six people were martyred and a number of others injured,” the Iranian press agency said in a dispatch monitored in Beirut. “A number of vehicles were smashed and windows of nearby houses shattered,” the agency added. The report was made at 9:45 AM Tehran time.
Pakistan accused Afghanistan today of killing 104 people so far this year in air raids and artillery shelling across the border. The Foreign Ministry gave the Afghan charge d’affaires, Sharif Folad, a strong protest against what it called the continuing unprovoked shelling of Pakistani territory. Yunus Sethi, a Pakistani Government spokesman, said Afghan shelling Tuesday in Teri Mangal, the fifth attack there this month, killed three Afghan refugees and wounded five.
Shah Mohammad Dost, the Afghan Foreign Minister, denied today that his country’s artillery had shelled Pakistani territory in attempts to knock out rebel sanctuaries. Mr. Dost spoke to reporters on his arrival for a third round of United Nations-sponsored talks aimed at ending the fighting between Moslem guerrillas and Afghan and Soviet forces.
About 50,000 people in New Delhi protested the dismissal of N.T. Rama Rao as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state in the biggest public show of opposition strength since India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi swept to power in 1980. Rama Rao, a former film idol who recently underwent open heart surgery, arrived at the rally in an ambulance. He was greeted with shouts of “Long live Rama Rao!” and “Down with Gandhi’s dictatorship!”
A daughter of Deng Xiaoping, in an article published on the Chinese leader’s 80th birthday, today described for the first time her father’s ordeal as a political outcast during the Cultural Revolution. Mr. Deng operated a lathe in a tractor factory, lived in a brick house with no heat, grew cabbages and beans to feed his family and read Marx and Lenin late into the night, the article said. The description of Mr. Deng’s humiliation at the hands of Mao Zedong and his followers was provided by one of Mr. Deng’s five children, identified only as Mao Mao. A 3,000-word article under this name filled a half-page of the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily today.
United States-Nicaraguan talks have progressed better than either side expected, but the prospects for a negotiated solution to the two countries’ differences remain remote, according to Administration officials. The talks, which began in June when Secretary of State George P. Shultz made an unexpected visit to Managua, have dealt with substantive security issues, including United States demands that Nicaragua end its support of guerrillas in El Salvador, according to the officials. “There’s been no grandstanding or stalling about procedural issues,” an official familiar with the discussions said.
The leftist government of Nicaragua, accusing the United States of “escalated aggression,” approved a decree calling for a nationwide air raid warning system. It is not known exactly how the system will work, but the decree ordered the Defense and Interior ministries, the air force and the Energy and Communications Institute to work together on the plan. Despite continuing U.S.-Nicaraguan talks, junta leader Daniel Ortega last week said he would not rule out the possibility of a U.S. military attack.
One of Colombia’s four main rebel groups announced that it will sign a truce with the government this week. The Popular Liberation Army becomes the third leftist guerrilla group to agree to a truce. The Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, the nation’s largest insurgent group with 5,000 guerrillas, signed a pact with the government May 28. The second-largest rebel force, known as M-19, has said it will sign a cease-fire at the end of the week. The National Liberation Army, the last rebel holdout, attacked an army outpost with grenades and bombs.
At least 18 Colombian policemen and members of a pro-Cuban guerrilla group died in clashes today as members of other rebel groups prepared to sign a truce with the Government, Defense Ministry sources said. The sources said about 50 members of the National Liberation Army attacked a police barracks near the Venezuelan border, killing eight policemen and wounding seven, and pursuing troopers later killed at least 10 rebels. The National Liberation Army has rejected peace proposals by the Government, which has arranged to sign truce agreements with the Maoist People’s Liberation Army the leftist M-19 guerrilla movement. The country’s biggest rebel group, the pro-Moscow Revolutionary Armed Forces, which has a membership of about 12,000, signed a similar truce in May.
The 18-million-year-old bones of apelike creatures thought to be the common ancestors of apes and humans have been found by scientists digging in Kenya. The discovery, one of the richest fossil sites uncovered in years, was expected to give paleoanthropologists a more complete picture of the appearance and behavior of the extinct creatures, known as Proconsul africanus, which shared characteristics that were apelike and monkeylike. Previously, scientists had only a skull and a few skeletal bones to document the existence of the Proconsuls and their apparently central role in the course of human evolution.
The United Democratic Front, an internal coalition of anti-apartheid groups in South Africa, organizes a highly successful boycotts of the Colored and Indian elections to parliament.
The Republican convention in Dallas renominates President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush. Republican Convention Ronald Wilson Reagan was placed in nomination for a second term as President, touching off the first sustained, deeply enthusiastic demonstration of the Republican National Convention. The Dallas Convention Center erupted in a roar, punctuated by the popping of thousands of red, white and blue balloons, after Senator Paul Laxalt of Nevada called for the re-election of Mr. Reagan as a leader of character, compassion and determination.
The President and First Lady watch televised coverage of the 1984 Republican Convention with Vice President and Mrs. Bush in their suite.
President Reagan met with former President, Gerald R. Ford in Dallas.
The President got a hero’s welcome from convention delegates. Standing in front of a 100-foot-long American flag, Mr. Reagan zestfully assailed the “defeatism, doom and despair” of the Democrats.
Barry Goldwater spoke his mind in his inimitable, unvarnished style despite efforts by White House and Reagan campaign officials to get him to tone down his rhetoric. At 75, the Senator from Arizona is ailing but triumphant. He repeated the clarion call of his ill-fated 1964 Presidential campaign, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”
Some Republican governors said the Reagan Administration and Republican convention officials were all but ignoring them. Many of the 15 Republican governors expressed impatience with the hard-line conservative positions taken by the election campaign platform.
Ninety-nine demonstrators were arrested today outside the Republican National Convention after a “Corporate War Chest Tour” through the downtown area in which they intimidated shoppers, splattered paint and burned an American flag. The demonstrators, members of the Youth International Party, or Yippies, completed the spree through downtown by jumping into the reflecting pool at City Hall in the sweltering Dallas heat. The protest was aimed against the Reagan Administration, war and companies with Government contracts.
Her appetite for the task apparently undiminished, Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro, bounced back on the campaign trail today with an appearance here before the American Federation of Teachers, a union she once belonged to. “Today is the first day of the rest of the campaign,” Mrs. Ferraro, a former elementary school teacher, told a packed crowd in the Washington Hilton ballroom. “Normally I begin a speech by saying I’m delighted to be here. After this week I have to tell you I am absolutely thrilled,” she added, her voice rising in crescendo.
The Consumer Price Index rose at a slightly faster pace in July than in the two preceding months, the Labor Department reported. However, the general view of economists both inside and outside the Reagan Administration was that the rise of three- tenths of 1 percent showed that inflation remained well in check and that this would continue until at least after Election Day.
Puerto Rico’s Senate will investigate the possibility that several United States Justice Department officials helped cover up the circumstances surrounding the killings of two young radicals by the police six years ago. A Senate investigaton has disputed the official police version that the men were killed in self defense.
General Motors has been accused by a senior Government safety official of improperly withholding documents from a second investigation into brake problems with the company’s 1980 mid-size cars. George L. Parker, chief of enforcement for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said the auto maker had failed to provide the agency with 18 company documents for a study of assertions that 1980 X-model cars sometimes lacked sufficient engine vacuum to operate power brakes without intense foot pressure.
Three persons were indicted on smuggling and conspiracy charges and arrested after federal agents in Miami seized 2,754 pounds of coca base, the main ingredient in cocaine, authorities said. “This is the first major seizure of coca base in the United States,” said Jim Dingfelder, spokesman for a federal drug task force. Dingfelder said the coca base, a paste derived from the leaves of the coca plant, would have produced the same amount of pure cocaine, worth about $70 million wholesale. The load originated in Lima, Peru, and was placed on a flight from Caracas, Venezuela, to Miami, officials said.
Intense negotiations in Washington to avert a nationwide coal strike for the first time since 1964 have broken down, officials of the industry and the United Mine Workers union confirmed. Bargainers for the soft coal industry group, the Bituminous Coal Operators Association, broke off talks with the 160,000-member UMW late Tuesday, saying “no basis exists” for further sessions at this point. The union’s contract expires September 30.
A strong earthquake rattled parts of three states early today, shaking some residents awake and prompting the shutdown of two nuclear reactors, but there were no reports of damage or injuries, the authorities said. The quake struck about 3:52 AM, said Diane Leaton, a Custer County sheriff’s dispatcher, who said she had received several calls. The quake was reported felt more than 160 miles away, in Spokane, Washington, and Kalispell, Montana. Scientists studying central Idaho’s earthquake belt said the rumblings that awakened many residents probably were aftershocks from major tremors last October that killed two children and destroyed several buildings. The quake was felt more than 150 miles from its point of origin near Challis, Idaho.
At the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory near Idaho Falls, operators who felt the quake decided to shut down two of the 15 operable reactors, said Peter Mygatt, spokesman for the laboratory. Both were quickly returned to service. The quake was not strong enough to active automatic shutdown mechanisms, Mr. Mygatt said. The quake registered 5.2 on the Richter scale of intensity, said Russ Needham, a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey in Golden, Colo. He said the quake was centered about 15 miles east of Challis and about 130 miles northeast of Boise.
A powerful bomb planted by a group opposing U.S. involvement in Latin America ripped through the General Electric building in Melville, New York, causing extensive damage but no injuries, authorities said. Up to 400 General Electric employees were evacuated from the building after a switchboard operator got a call from a woman who claimed to be representing the United Freedom Front and said a bomb would go off in 30 minutes, a spokesman for Suffolk County police said.
Reports of major crimes decreased 6.4 percent in Los Angeles in the first six months of 1984, the police said today, citing increased arrests for narcotics and vice violations as the main reason. The drop included a decrease of 7.2 percent in homicides. If the trend continued for the rest of the year, the city could achieve its lowest total of slayings since 1978, according to a Lieutenant Dan Cooke, spokesman for the police. The only major crime category on the rise was aggravated assault, which rose 4.3 percent. Other crimes that fell in the first six months of 1984 included forceable rape, down 1.8 percent; robbery, down 10.8 percent; burglary, down 15 percent, and theft, down 1.1 percent.
An unusually strong outbreak of type B hepatitis in the Worcester, Massachusetts, area has struck 78 persons in the last year and six persons have died, but the state’s leading disease expert says it is little threat to the public. Dr. George Grady, a leading expert in hepatitis, said that the risk of contracting the disease is greatest among users of unclean hypodermic needles and their sexual partners. Grady emphasized that the type of hepatitis in Worcester is transmitted by blood or by intimate physical contact — not through food or water, as is type A hepatitis. Federal health officials have proposed vaccinating drug users and their sexual partners against hepatitis B to try to stem the outbreak. “This is being considered because of the severity of the outbreak,” Dr. Hadler said. “But we’re not even sure how easy it would be to get it to them.” Officials have determined that about 60 percent of those who have contracted the disease are drug users while about 15 percent had sexual contact with drug users.
A convicted murderer who was the only one of three escaped Utah State Prison convicts still at large may have stolen a van and fled the area, authorities said. Wesley Tuttle, 33, considered “the most violent” of the three inmates who escaped from the prison’s medium security section Tuesday morning, was believed to have stolen a van sometime before 6 a.m., said Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Lt. John Bernardo. Aided by dogs, guards captured the other two fugitives — Darrell Eugene Brady and Walter Wood, also a convicted murderer — late Tuesday. The two were caught within 12 hours after they escaped by prying open three doors and walking out the prison’s front door in civilian clothes.
A judge in Elizabethtown, North Carolina, set November 2 as the execution date for Velma Margie Barfield, who would be the first woman executed in the United States in 22 years. Her attorney, James Little, said that he will appeal to Governor James B. Hunt Jr. for clemency. Barfield was convicted of poisoning her fiance in 1978.
The last Volkswagen Rabbit is produced.
Evelyn Ashford of the U.S. ties the world women’s mark for 100 meters, in 10.76 seconds.
The knee injury suffered in practice Tuesday by NFL running back William Andrews, who in only five seasons has become the No. 1 rusher in the history of the Atlanta Falcons’ franchise, will cause him to miss the entire season and may end his career, the Falcons’ orthopedic surgeon said today. The doctor, John Garrett, made the assessment after performing two and a half hours of surgery on the knee this morning. He said Andrews had suffered severe ligament damage, which was repaired, but also had suffered a nerve injury that “leaves a slight air of uncertainty” concerning his career. Dr. Garrett said it would be six to nine months before he knew whether the nerve damage would end that career.
Bobby Grich and Jim Slaton led the California Angels to a 2–1 victory over the New York Yankees. Grich hit a long home run in the sixth inning, then rapped a double in the eighth that drove in the second run. Slaton pitched seven shutout innings, departing only after Bobby Meacham led off the Yankee half of the eighth with a single. Meacham scored, but Don Aase preserved the victory for Slaton.
The first-place Detroit Tigers use a balanced attack to whip the visiting Oakland Athletics, 11–4. Alan Trammell has a pair of hits to extend his hitting streak to 20 games. Marty Castillo drove in three runs with a single and a triple, Juan Berenguer pitched seven innings of five-hit ball and Oakland committed three costly errors as Detroit swept their three-game series. Oakland’s Carney Lansford went hitless in five at-bats, snapping his hitting streak at 24 games.
Scott McGregor (15–11) shut out Seattle on nine hits, and Wayne Gross hit a two- run homer to lead Baltimore Orioles to a 4–0 win over the Mariners.
The Kansas City Royals defeated the Boston Red Sox, 6–2. Willie Wilson had four consecutive hits and scored three times, Lynn Jones drove in three runs and Darryl Motley belted a two-run homer to power the Kansas City victory. Kansas City’s Steve Balboni struck out four times in four times at bat, extending his strikeout string to nine. Only four players, all pitchers, have struck out in 10 or more consecutive appearances at the plate.
Mickey Hatcher’s run-scoring single in the eighth gave first-place Minnesota a sweep of the doubleheader, as the Minnesota Twins took two from the Milwaukee Brewes, 5–2 and 4–3. In the first game, Tom Brunansky cracked his 26th home run and Kirby Puckett hit a two-run triple in the seventh to back Mike Smithson’s six-hitter.
The Cleveland Indians clobbered the Toronto Blue Jays, 13–3. George Vukovich keyed Cleveland’s seven-run first inning with a two-run single and Brett Butler got out four hits to lead Cleveland to its eighth consecutive victory. It was the Indians’ fifth straight victory over Toronto.
New York Mets pitcher Dwight Gooden becomes the 11th rookie to strikeout 200 in a season. Dwight Gooden strikes out Garry Templeton in the eighth inning of the Mets’ 5-2 victory over the San Diego Padres at Jack Murphy Stadium to become the 11th pitcher to strike out 200 batters in his rookie season. The 19 year-old freshman becomes only the third teenager to accomplish the feat, joining Bob Feller (1938 Indians) and Gary Nolan (1967 Reds). Graig Nettles’ fourth-inning two-run homer off Doc Gooden is his seventh round-tripper in his last six games, tying a National League record shared by Walker Cooper, George Kelly, and Willie Mays. The Padres third baseman’s blast, one of only three hits given up by Gooden.
Johnnie LeMaster’s two-out infield single in the bottom of the eighth broke a tie and gave the San Francisco Giants a 7–5 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. Joel Youngblood started the winning rally with a leadoff single off Al Holland (5–8). Youngblood went to second on a grounder and scored the go-ahead run on LeMaster’s pinch-hit. Mark Davis (4–15) blanked the Phillies for two innings in relief and earned the victory, snapping a personal nine-game losing streak.
Dan Driessen and Tim Wallach doubled consecutively to lead off the 11th inning and Mike Stenhouse later added a two-run single to pace the Montreal Expos to a 5–3 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Driessen and Wallach doubled off the reliever Ken Howell (2–4) and Doug Flynn followed one out later with another double. Wallach held at third, but both runners scored on Stenhouse’s single.
At Wrigley Field, Houston scores 7 runs in the 2nd inning as the Astros beat the Chicago Cubs, 8–3. Phil Garner solos in the frame while Jose Cruz hits a grand slam. Nolan Ryan scatters five hits and strikes out 12 as he goes the distance. It was the 155th time in his career that he had struck out 10 or more in a game. Ryan’s 12 strikeouts gave him a career total of 3,841, 3 behind Steve Carlton of Philadelphia, the career leader.
Larry McWilliams pitched a four-hitter and drove in two runs, and Lee Lacy had three hits and scored twice to lead the Pittsburgh Pirates over the Atlanta Braves, 7–2. After the start of the game was delayed 51 minutes by rain, Albert Hall led off with his first major-league home run.
Mike Jorgensen hits a 3-run homer and Terry Pendleton solos as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6–3. Ron Oester has a hit and 2 RBI for the Reds to extend his consecutive game hitting streak to 22. Joaquin Andujar got his 17th victory, the most in the major leagues. Bruce Sutter got the last out for his league-leading 34th save.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1231.78 (-7.95).
Born:
David Huff, MLB pitcher (Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels), in Huntington Beach, California.
Chris Patrick, NFL tackle (San Francisco 49ers), in Ashley, Michigan.
Katie Stuart, American actress (“General Hospital”), in Sonora, California.
Edda Magnason, Swedish singer-songwriter, musician and film actress, in Ystad, Sweden.
Died:
Charles Whittenberg, 57, American composer.
History Diaries 