Poland’s Communist authorities vowed to crush any demonstrations marking the fourth anniversary of the outlawed Solidarity trade union movement. Leaders of the Solidarity underground have called for nationwide demonstrations Aug. 31, the anniversary, but founder Lech Walesa has warned against any confrontation with the regime. “The law enforcement organs will counter violations of the law, and attempts to disturb public order will meet with legally defined response,” the prosecutor’s office warned in a statement distributed by the official PAP news agency.
Romania marked the 40th anniversary of its liberation from the Nazis with nationwide rallies, including a huge military parade. through Bucharest that included the nation’s Olympic athletes, who defied the Soviet-led boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics. The celebration commemorated the anti-Nazi uprising on August 23, 1944, that ousted the pro-German government and led to a Communist takeover.
The State Department said today that it had received a report that Yelena G. Bonner, a prominent dissident who is the wife of Andrei D. Sakharov, had been convicted last week of slandering the Soviet state and sentenced to up to five years of internal exile. Alan D. Romberg, a department spokesman, said that the United States had not been able to confirm the report, which another official said came from “a very reliable source.” Reporters and diplomats with experience in the Soviet Union said it would be highly unusual for someone of Miss Bonner’s prominence to be tried and convicted without any mention of the event by Soviet news organizations, or for knowledge of it not to have been circulated authoritatively to reporters in Moscow through unofficial sources.
But they said it was possible that Soviet authorities had chosen to withhold official release of information because of the expected worldwide outcry. Miss Bonner, 61 years old, has no close relatives in the Soviet Union, except her husband, who is himself a prominent dissident. Because they are both isolated in the city of Gorky, news of her trial, if it was held, might not have reached correspondents in Moscow through the unofficial but usually reliable dissident channels.
A British military yearbook, Jane’s Fighting Ships, says Soviet commandos have carried out scores of practice landings on the Swedish coast over the last 20 years. The assertion was heatedly denied today by the Soviet Union. Sweden said it had no information on Soviet landings. The 1984-85 edition of the annual on world navies, published Wednesday, said more than 150 practice raids had been conducted by Soviet elite troops trained for sabotage, reconnaissance and assassination. The Soviet press agency Tass charged that the editor of Jane’s Fighting Ships, Captain John Moore of the Royal Navy, “seems to have decided to beat every record of lies and slander against the Soviet Union.” In Stockholm, a military spokesman said there was no proof of such landings, which would be acts of war.
Scottish dockworkers walked off their jobs in support of Britain’s five-month-old coal strike, and dock union leaders threatened to close all of the major British ports for the second time this summer. At Hunterston, near Glasgow, dockers refused to unload a ship carrying imported coal for a state-owned steel mill. They went on strike after the coal ship was docked and unloaded by non-union workers. The strike spread quickly to principal Scottish ports, including Aberdeen, Dundee and Leith, which service the North Sea oil fields.
Opposition leaders called again today for an investigation into the Thatcher Government’s conduct of the early stages of the 1982 war with Argentina. The demands came after the left-wing magazine The New Statesman published an article suggesting that the government had contemplated a nuclear threat or attack against Argentina and had sent a submarine carrying Polaris missiles to the South Atlantic. The article was based on what the magazine described as Cabinet and Defense and Foreign Ministry documents. The article also made fresh allegations about circumstances surrounding the sinking of an Argentine cruiser, the General Belgrano. Spokesmen at the Ministry of Defense and the Foreign Office said today that they had no comment on the statements.
Israeli Prime Minister-designate Shimon Peres’s chances of forming a narrow coalition government before the expiration of a preliminary deadline this weekend dimmed tonight after representatives of two small factions said they would hold out for a broader coalition that included the Likud bloc. Peres said he needs more time to form a government and will ask President Chaim Herzog for another three weeks, Peres’ Labor party said. The announcement came on the eve of a meeting between Peres and caretaker Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of the Likud bloc in another effort to form a government of national unity. Meanwhile, two small parties, Tami and the National Religious Party, refused an offer to join forces with Labor and said they will only support a joint LaborLikud government.
A Soviet destroyer and helicopter cruiser, outfitted with anti-mine gear and tailed by a U.S. Navy frigate, the John L. Hall, sailed through the Suez Canal and into the Gulf of Suez. The two bring to five the number of Soviet naval vessels that have moved into the region in an apparent effort to clear mines from a section of the Red Sea near South Yemen, a Soviet ally. Mines in the vital waterway have damaged at least 19 vessels since July 9. The Pentagon has said there has been no attempt to coordinate Western mine-clearing with the Soviet operations.
Iraq said today that its warplanes had scored a direct hit on a “large naval target” south of Kharg Island, Iran’s key oil exporting terminal in the Persian Gulf. There was no immediate comment from Iran. In the past, Iraq has used the phrase “large naval target” to refer to an oil tanker attacked while sailing to or from Iran. Since February Iraq has been trying to enforce a blockade that would weaken Iran’s ability to continue fighting in the Iran-Iraq war. Shipping sources reported picking up no distress signals in Bahrain, but they said radio communications with the northern part of the gulf were jammed for more than half an hour in the afternoon, coinciding with the time the attack was reported to have taken place, about 2:40 PM. Lloyd’s shipping intelligence unit in London said it had no information on any attack on a merchant vessel in the gulf today.
At least 17 Iranians were killed and 300 wounded when a terrorist bomb exploded on a busy street in Tehran. Callers to foreign news bureaus in the capital claimed responsibility for the attack in the name of two groups opposed to Iran’s revolutionary Government. The official Tehran radio blamed “stooges and puppets of America.” The death toll was the heaviest from a bomb in Tehran since October 2, 1982, when a blast near the telecommunications center killed 82 people. A month earlier an explosion killed 100 people near the Ministry of Industries, and in 1981 two bombs killed dozens of Iran’s revolutionary leaders, including Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Rajai.
The United States called on the Soviet Union and Afghanistan to halt cross-border attacks into Pakistan, which the State Department said have killed nearly 50 people in the last week. State Department spokesman Alan Romberg issued a statement urging Moscow to permit genuine progress in indirect talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan, scheduled to resume today in Geneva.
The ruling lower house of Parliament approved a constitutional amendment today permitting the central government to continue direct rule in Punjab state for another year. The bill, approved 326 to 69 over vehement criticism by oppsition legislators, empowers the government to continue control over the Sikh-dominated state in two six-month increments through October 1984. Punjab was put under federal government rule and security forces were given special powers to search homes and arrest suspected Sikh extremists in October 1983 after a series of terrorist slayings.
Sri Lanka’s national security minister said that extensive fire damage to homes and businesses in the northern province city of Velvettithurai was done by townspeople, not by government troops as citizens told reporters. “The military did not do it,” said Lalith Athulathmudali, who has served as commander and chief government spokesman during the three-week offensive against Tamil separatist guerrillas.
The left-wing Popular Liberation Army signed a truce with the Government today to end 20 years of insurgency, the president of the Government Peace Commission said. Guerrilla military commanders and Peace Commission officials signed the pact in the city of Medellin, 300 miles northeast of Bogota, the Commission President, John Agudelo Rios, told reporters. He said a cease-fire would go into effect next Thursday. The commission is due to sign a similar truce Friday with another major rebel group, the M-19, after a peace agreement in May with the 12,000- strong Revolutionary Armed Forces, the largest of the country’s insurgent groups. The truces have been President Belisario Betancur’s main aim since he took office two years ago with a pledge to end more than 30 years of political violence in Bogota. The pro-Cuban National Liberation Army has rejected peace proposals by the Government.
Magistrates formally ordered a Nigerian aid three Israelis today to stand trial on charges connected with the foiled kidnapping of a former Negerian Cabinet Minister, Umaru Dikko. The four are accused of kidnapping the exiled politician July 5, injecting him with drugs and trying to take him out of Britian in an airline freight crate. They will be tried at the Central Criminal Courts known as the Old Bailey. A date has not yet been set. The four defendants appeared in Lambeth Magistrates’ Court today amid tight security. The magitrates rejected a plea by Mohammed Yusufu, 40 years old, of Lagos, capital of Nigeria, that he be freed because of diplomatic immunity. In court with Mr. Usufu were Dr. Lev-Arie Sharpiro, 43, Alexander Abitbol, 31, and Alexander Barak, 27, all Israelis. Mr. Dikko, 47, was Transport Minister in the civilian government of President Shehu Shagari, which was overthrown in a December 31 military coup. The regime of Major General Mohammadu Buhari wants Mr. Dikko returned for trial in Lagos. It says Mr. Dikko plundered state coffers of millions of dollars.
President Reagan appealed for Republicans’ help in completing the “unfinished agenda” of a conservative transformation of the Federal Government. Mr. Reagan, in accepting re-nomination, told the delegates to the Republican National Convention that the contest between himself and Walter F. Mondale, the Democratic Presidential candidate, presented the nation’s voters “with the clearest political choice of half a century.”
President Reagan, appearing at an event billed as an “ecumenical prayer breakfast,” said that politics and religion were inseparable and that those who argued otherwise were “intolerant of religion.” The breakfast was attended by 10,000 religious leaders and laymen.
Conservatives have been in firm control of the Republican convention. Sixty percent of the delegates call themselves conservative, 35 percent call themselves moderate and 1 percent say they are liberal, according to a CBS News survey.
The televised look of the Republican convention has reflected the patriotism, warmth and traditionalism that President Reagan has come to personify. But another face of the party has become visible. It is an emergent hard-line conservatism, defined largely by the powerful presence of activist Protestant fundamentalists, with a core of television evangelists and business millionaires.
Assassination memorabilia were destroyed by an intensely hot fire in Dallas that was methodically set by an arsonist in the old Texas Schoolbook Depository, from which the shots that killed President Kennedy were fired 21 years ago. Ninety-three firefighters responded to the five- alarm blaze.
John A. Zaccaro obtained a delay of a June court hearing on his handling of an elderly woman’s estate so the matter would not “interfere” with the Democratic convention that chose his wife as the Vice Presidential nominee, a court referee said. The referee, Jonathan A. Weinstein, made the remark after Mr. Zaccaro, at the rescheduled hearing yesterday, defended his conduct as the court-appointed conservator.
President Reagan participates in an interview with George Skelton, correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.
President Reagan attends the Republican National Hispanic Assembly luncheon.
G.O.P. tax-cutting plans were assailed by aides to Walter F. Mondale. They charged that six of the tax changes proposed by the Republican Party in its campaign platform would cost the Federal Government $160 billion a year and would mainly benefit the rich.
Reporters would cover military operations under special provisions to be devised by the Pentagon, under the recommenation of a panel of military officers and journalistss appointed after the Grenada invasion. However, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger said the paramount consideration would be what senior civilian officials and military officers believe is necessary for military security. Weinberger approved recommendations by a special military-media panel to provide maximum news coverage of U.S. military operations “consistent with military security and the safety of U.S. forces.” The panel was set up last November by Army General John Vessey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to review restrictions that barred American reporters from Grenada during the first two days of the invasion of the Caribbean island last October. Under the plan, the two major wire services, United Press International and the Associated Press, would get priority in pool assignments.
Boston Edison cut power to a 20-block section of downtown Boston after smoke began pouring from manholes in Chinatown, a utility spokesman said. Hotels, theaters and subway stations were thrown into darkness, and rushhour traffic was snarled as stop lights went dark. Power was cut to 6,500 customers at 3:30 PM when overheated underground cables caught fire and smoke billowed from the manholes, a utility spokesman said. Police sent 30 extra patrolmen into the area to move traffic and guard against looting, said Tom Santry, a police spokesman.
Toddler meals in jars made by two of the nation’s biggest baby food manufacturers are dangerously high in salt and may contribute to high blood pressure later in life, a public watchdog group said. The Center for Science in the Public Interest said Beech Nut Nutrition Corp. and Gerber Products Co. had already stopped adding salt to strained baby foods and the slightly more solid junior foods, aimed at infants who have not started teething, in response to public pressure in the 1970s.
A study of thousands of men who have undergone vasectomies indicates that the sterilization procedure poses no health risks. Dr. Gerald Bernstein of the University of Southern California School of Medicine said the study of 10,590 vasectomized men produced no evidence of health problems that have been seen in animal studies. The report on the new human study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
A former Cook County sheriff’s deputy charged with bribery in the Operation Greylord investigation of Cook County courtroom corruption became the second defendant to go free when he was acquitted in Chicago by U.S. District Judge Milton I. Shadur. The judge said Alan Kaye, 34, charged with extortion and mail fraud, should have been tried in a state court, rather than a federal court. Kaye was the second person to be acquitted of bribery charges stemming from Greylord. Cook County Associate Judge John G. Laurie, 39, was acquitted by a U.S. District Court jury earlier this month.
A federal grand jury in Richmond, Virginia, charged that two lieutenants and a guard at a federal prison assaulted and gassed handcuffed inmates and that the officers then tried to scare co-workers out of telling the grand jury about the attack. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said a 10-count indictment was returned in the 1982 incident at the Federal Correctional Institution at Petersburg, Virginia.
Condemned killer Linwood Briley lost a key appeal in Richmond, Virginia, and was given 21 days to make a final plea for his life. The ruling by a federal appeals court continued for three weeks a stay of execution to give attorneys a chance to seek an additional stay or reversal from the U.S. Supreme Court, which has twice refused to hear Briley’s appeals. Briley and his brother, James, led four other killers in a May 31 breakout from Mecklenburg Correctional Center, Virginia’s maximum-security prison.
Martha Edgar, the president of the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, said today that there was hope for an alcohol-free country. “It is an addicting drug and all who produce it, promote it and use it are pushers,” she said in a speech to the organization’s 110th annual convention. She said she was encouraged, in part, by greater recognition of problems caused by alcohol and the campaign against drinking and driving.
New insights into Alzheimer’s disease have been gleaned by scientists in Massachusetts. They found that large molecules remain intact in frozen human brains long after death and, by studying such molecules, they have discovered a basic biological abnormality in senile brains destroyed by the disease.
Vietnam War veterans are coming of age in the Veterans of Foreign Wars, an organization many of them once shunned. More than 575,000 of the organization’s 2 million members served in Vietnam.
A labor accord at U.P.I. was announced by the news service and the union representing most of its 2,000 employees. Under a 13-month austerity program, wages would be cut immediatly by 25 percent, 200 jobs would be eliminated, and company contributions to employee pension funds would be halted for one year. In return, employees would be given stock equal to 6.5 percent of U.P.I.’s equity.
The developer who bought the Southfork Ranch, the home of J. R. Ewing in the “Dallas” television series, says he will turn the big white house into a $2,500- a-night hotel. Terry Trippet of Dallas, who bought the house from J. R. Duncan for $1 million, said Wednesday that the $2,500 rate would entitle visitors to a three- bedroom suite and rates would be higher for weekends. He said he would not live in the house, but the “Ewing family” could go on filming there.
Cecil Cooper and Ted Simmons stroked successive run-scoring singles in the fourth inning to help the Milwaukee Brewers end a six-game losing streak with a 5–2 victory over the Minnesota Twins. Bob McClure (4–5) pitched a six-hitter, completing his first game in 12 starts and cutting Minnesota’s lead in the American League West to five games over California and Kansas City. Jim Gantner opened the Brewers’ fourth with a double to left off Frank Viola (14–11), and Robin Yount reached base on Tim Teufel’s error at second. Cooper and Simmons then followed with singles. One out later, Bobby Clark rapped a single to left to drive in Cooper and give Milwaukee a 4–2 lead. Mark Brouhard hit a homer in the seventh for the Brewers’ fifth run.
Doyle Alexander pitched a four-hitter to snap Cleveland’s eight-game winning streak, and George Bell drove in two runs to lead the Toronto Blue Jays past the Cleveland Indians, 6–1. The victory was the first for the Blue Jays after five consecutive losses to Cleveland, a slump that included 13–3 and 16–1 defeats. Alexander, a 34-year-old riht-hander, won his fourth consecutive game and moved his record to 12–5. He walked three and struck out seven in his fifth complete game of the season. The Jays took a 1–0 lead in the first inning without a hit off Don Schulze (2–5). Dave Collins walked with one out, stole second and went to third on a throwing error by Jerry Willard, the catcher, one of three errors he had in the game. Ernie Whitt drove Collins with a sacrifice fly.
Terry Puhl homered and drove in three runs to highlight a 20-hit attack tonight that powered the Houston Astros past the St. Louis Cardinals, 9–6. Houston overame an early 4–0 deficit by pounding out its season-high hit total against four St. Louis pitchers. Denny Walling had four hits, and Puhl and Bill Doran had three apiece. Puhl singled home two runs in the third inning and then led off a two-run fifth with his seventh homer of the season. The Astros scored in the fifth when Walling singled, stole second and scored on a single by Phil Garner. In the sixth, a pinch-hitter, Jim Pankovits cracked a run-scoring single to score Mark Bailey, and Craig Reynolds’s run-scoring in the seventh made it 6–4. Art Howe’s sacrifice fly pulled the Cardinals to 6–5 in the top of the eighth, but the Astros scored three times in the bottom half of the inning.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1232.44 (+0.66).
Born:
Peria Jerry, NFL defensive tackle and defensive end (Atlanta Falcons), in Memphis, Tennessee.
Ben Patrick, NFL tight end (Arizona Cardinals), in Savannah, Georgia.
Jeremy Kapinos, NFL punter (New York Jets, Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers), in West Point, New York.
Charles Ali, NFL running back (Cleveland Browns), in St. Louis, Missouri.
Joe Talbot, Welsh punk-rock singer-songwriter (Ides), in Newport, Wales, United Kingdom.
History Diaries 