President Reagan learns that Andrei Gromyko has accepted his invitation to meet.
Formal opposition to genocide was expressed by the Reagan Administration as it announced support for a 36-year-old United Nations convention against the practice. The convention has been opposed by right-wing groups and Southern senators on the ground it might interfere with state laws.
East German leader Erich Honecker was quoted as saying that he postponed his visit to West Germany because of “insults of a coarse nature” originating there and that “no normal relationship is possible” with Bonn under the present circumstances. Jo Lienen, head of a delegation of West German ecologists visiting East Berlin, relayed Honecker’s comments to reporters after an hour-long talk with the Communist Party leader. There was no elaboration on the reference to insults. Most officials in Bonn believe that Soviet pressure was responsible for Honecker’s postponing the September 26-29 visit. No new date has been set.
Three Soviet astronauts who have been orbiting the earth since February 8 equalled an endurance record of 211 days in space, demonstrating the Soviet Union’s commitment to long-term space flights. The ever-longer missions, coupled with Western intelligence reports that the Russians are experimenting with huge rockets capable of lifting heavy payloads into orbit, indicate that the Soviet Union is steadily moving toward its goal of establishing a permanent manned station in space. There has been no indication of how much longer the three astronauts of the Salyut 7 space station are to remain in orbit. The record they equaled was set by two other Russian astronauts in December 1982. Soviet reports have said the flight of the Salyut 7 is proceeding normally and that the astronauts are in good health. The crew of Salyut 7 has focused on the psychology of long periods in space, with tests being carried out by Oleg Atkov, a 34-year-old cardiologist. The mission commander is Leonid Kizim, 42, an Air Force test pilot making his second space flight. The flight engineer is Vladimir Solovyov, 37.
High waves ripped away part of the hull of a French freighter that sank in the North Sea carrying radioactive cargo, and three empty containers floated up and were picked up by salvage workers, a salvaging company official said. The ship had been carrying 22 empty containers. Gale-force winds and 10-foot waves for a third day kept salvage workers from trying to extract 30 other containers filled with uranium hexafluoride. The freighter, the Mont Louis, is lying on its side and is partly visible at low tide.
Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, in his first television appearance since taking office in July, warned tonight that what he called the country’s economic crisis would end only after a long and painful effort. “The government today, faithful to its convictions, cannot save the French from making efforts,” Mr. Fabius said. “We are now in and we are going to remain in a period of difficulty. “Either we modernize, doing so in a human way so that the modernization can be sustained, or we will retreat in the face of effort and difficulty,” Mr. Fabius said. To retreat, he added, would mean that “France in 20 years will no longer exist as a great power.”
The National Coal Board and union leaders today scheduled a new round of talks, but on terms that held out little hope for a quick end to Britain’s six-month-old coal strike. The mine union leader, Arthur Scargill, said he had accepted an invitation from the chairman of the National Coal Board, Ian MacGregor, for talks on Sunday, but Mr. Scargill immediately reiterated his demand that Mr. MacGregor drop plans to close money-losing pits — the crux of the dispute.
Prospects for a joint government of national unity in Israel appeared much improved after new talks between caretaker Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Labor leader Shimon Peres. Both said they have made progress. Peres said he was confident they will reach a final agreement Friday. Shamir appeared more cautious, saying problems remain but that “I cannot see any differences that cannot be overcome.”
Lebanon’s Education Minister today narrowly escaped a car bomb explosion that killed four people and wounded 27. The bomb appeared intended not only for Education Minister Salim al- Hoss — or possibly Prime Minister Rashid Karami — but also for the Sunni and Shiite religious leaders in West Beirut. No group took responsibility for the attack, which occurred on the Muslim feast of Al Adha, ending the annual period of pilgrimage to Mecca. Ordinarily on this day, the Prime Minister, who is traditionally a Sunni, picks up the Sunni Grand Mufti, or religious leader, at his home and drives in a procession to a mosque for prayers. Today Mr. Karami, the Prime Minister, was home in Tripoli, and Mr. Hoss, who is a former Prime Minister, was filling in for him when he drove to the residence of the Mufti, Sheik Hassan Khaled. There, the Shiite religious leader, Sheik Mohammed Mahdi Shamseddin, was also waiting.
As Mr. Hoss’s limousine drove up to the residence in the Rouche seafront district shortly after 6 AM, a parked car exploded. Mr. Hoss’s driver was killed by the blast, along with two motorcycle policemen and a woman walking nearby. The explosion wrecked dozens of cars and shattered windows over a wide area. Police, firemen, soldiers and militiamen rushed to the scene, sirens wailing. Mr. Hoss, sitting in the back of the car, was unhurt, but the smoke and dust upset a sinus condition he suffers and he was taken to American University Hospital for the night.
In the event of a Moroccan-Libyan “union,” the United States would cut off military aid to Morocco unless that country guaranteed that U.S. military equipment would not fall into Libyan hands, State Department officials said. Moroccan Royal Counselor Reda Guedira met with Secretary of State George P. Shultz in Washington in an effort to assure the United States that plans for a federation with the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi will not affect Morocco’s military independence. Morocco has received $56 million in U.S. military grants or loans during the current fiscal year.
Iraq has informed the West German Government that it is considering a request that Bonn be allowed to inspect the site of a chemical laboratory being built near Baghdad, a a Government official said today. But Foreign Minister Tareq Aziz of Iraq, who ended a two-day visit to Bonn today, said details and the date of such a visit had not yet been agreed upon, according to the German official. Bonn has been pressing Iraq to allow West Germans to inspect the site west of Baghdad where a West German company is building a laboratory for the manufacture of pesticides. The company, Karl Kolb, a major supplier of laboratory equipment around the world, has said that the laboratory would be for use in testing pesticides manufactured in Iraq. But American intelligence officials have said they believed the laboratory equipment was linked to Iraqi plans for nerve gas production.
A total of 105 people, most of them Iraqi soldiers, were killed and 47 soldiers were wounded in six days of fighting between the Iraqi Army and Kurdish rebels, a spokesman for the exiled Kurdish Democratic Party said today. The spokesman said the Iraqi troops carried out a one-day attack August 26 on Kurdish rebel units in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurdish guerrillas are fighting for a separate homeland. The spokesman said the Iraqi military mounted another offensive August 28. “The Iraqis were beaten back after five days of fighting,” he said.
The Philippine Bar Association has concluded that a soldier shot the opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. last year in a conspiracy involving “high echelons of government” and the military, the association’s president said today. The bar association’s report was submitted Tuesday to an official fact-finding board that is putting the finishing touches to its own report, expected to be published sometime this month. “It is our conclusion that a conspiracy existed within the high echelons of government, carried out by the military, to assassinate Senator Aquino,” said the bar association’s president, Raul M. Gonzales, who attended most of the fact-finding board’s 10 months of sessions. But he said there were “no proofs extant that can establish how far this conspiracy will reach.”
A group of Americans and Chinese will open a series of scheduled exchanges Thursday on “matters of international political and strategic importance,” conference organizers said today. In private sessions, leaders in the fields of government, business, law and education will focus on issues such as economic development, arms control and Chinese-American relations. By keeping the encounters informal and off-the-record, conference organizers are hoping to encourage a thorough, candid exchange of views. Arthur A. Rosen, president of the National Committee on United States- China Relations, said that while there had been “one shot” meetings before, there had been “no continuing dialogue” at this level between the two countries. He added that the group “might continue over the years to get to know each other, to get insight into the people who are knowledgeable on the other side.” Under the joint sponsorship of the National Committee on United States-China Relations and the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, these conferences will be held alternately in the United States and China.
The Vatican confrontation set for Friday between a powerful cardinal and an influential Brazilian priest signals a hardening of the division in the Roman Catholic Church over the religious-political movement known as the theology of liberation. The doctrine involves the use of Marxist analysis and has been used to justify the activism of priests and nuns in Latin America.
Prompted by the slaughter of Indian peasants in isolated hamlets, 100 prominent Peruvian centrists urged their government to respect human rights as it battles Maoist guerrillas. The message, in the form of a paid newspaper ad, was signed by novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, a number of government supporters, the head of the industrialists’ association and the publishers of two conservative daily newspapers. The statement followed similar calls last month from left-wing politicians and unionists. More than 3,500 people have died and nearly 1,000 are missing in the four-year-old battle between security forces and the guerrillas.
Pieter W. Botha was elected to the new post of executive state president of South Africa as black groups continued to demonstrate their opposition to the country’s “reform constitution.” A bomb wrecked an electricity substation 50 miles northwest of Johannesburg, blacking out eight towns, and another bomb, found in a Johannesburg courthouse, exploded without harm. Rioting continued for the third day in black townships. Botha’s elevation from prime minister to executive president was expected because his party controls the parliamentary body filling the post. The Constitution provides limited political rights for people of Indian and mixed racial descent, but excludes the black majority.
12th NASA Space Shuttle Mission (STS-41D): The Discovery returned from its successful six-day maiden flight, gliding to a smooth landing at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California. Officials expressed pride that all objectives of the shuttle mission had been accomplished. The space shuttle Discovery returned from its successful six-day maiden flight today, swooping out of the clear blue desert sky, turning before the hills as the sun was rising, and gliding to a smooth landing here on a dry lakebed runway. Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration used words like “pleased” and “proud,” “delighted” and “ecstatic” in describing the performance of the six-member crew and their spaceship. All the mission’s objectives, they said, were accomplished. Indeed, the successful flight came at a key time for NASA, a time when the space agency is planning to accelerate the shuttle program. One mission a month is to be undertaken in the next 15 months. And the flight followed a series of recent disruptive malfunctions and delays in the program.
“This flight brings us back on schedule again,” Jesse W. Moore, NASA’s associate administrator for the shuttle program, said, at a news conference after the landing. The $1.2 billion winged spaceship, the third in the nation’s shuttle fleet, touched down at 6:37 A.M., Pacific daylight time. “We’ve got a good bird there,” Henry W. Hartsfield Jr., Discovery’s commander, told a small welcoming crowd. Mr. Moore said the Discovery had apparently survived the fiery re-entry into the atmosphere with little or no damage. “It looks beautiful,” he said. The craft is scheduled to fly again in early November, and its sister ship, the Challenger, is to fly in early October and again in December. The space agency was able to regain time lost because of the Discovery’s two-month postponement and some payload cancellations by combining in this mission most of the cargoes and tests originally planned for two flights, the one delayed from June and another one that was to have been launched in August.
Walter F. Mondale pledged that on his first day as President he would call on the Soviet leadership to meet with him within six months in Geneva for negotiations to freeze the arms race and reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles. Appearing before sporadically applauding members of the American Legion who half filled a hall, Mr. Mondale said, “Every day we fail to open negotiations with the Soviets is another day we slip toward Armageddon.”
Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., frustrated with Walter Mondale’s Presidential campaign, urged him “to stop acting like a gentleman and come out fighting” President Reagan. Representative O’Neill, the House Speaker, said at a news conference that Mr. Reagan was planning to cut Social Security benefits and increase American intervention abroad.
American women are tracking the vicissitudes of Geraldine A. Ferraro’s historic Vice Presidential campaign with intense interest and widely varying opinions. There is a rainbow of reaction among women, from glee to anger, on the commotion over the financial affairs of Mrs. Ferraro and her husband.
President Reagan participates in the “Choosing a Future” Conference sponsored by the Economic Club of Chicago. The $170 billion deficit can be cut by means of increased revenue from the economic recovery and further cuts in Federal spending, said President Reagan in a speech before the Economic Club of Chicago. In 1980 Mr. Reagan promised the same organization that he would balance the Federal budget by 1983.
Air Force One, carrying President Reagan and his entourage, lost cabin pressure today because of a failure in an air vent but landed safely in Washington. No injuries were reported. The incident occurred as Mr. Reagan flew back to Washington from Chicago, his last stop on a four-day campaign swing. “There was never any danger,” a steward on Air Force One told reporters. The plane was cruising at about 21,000 feet when passengers heard a lound noise. They could feel a change in air pressure and some experienced pain in their ears. The pilot, Robert Ruddick, took the plane down to 9,000 feet and landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington about half an hour later. An assistant White House press secretary, Kim Hoggard, said the incident was caused by a “relay failure in the air vent” over the microwave oven in the galley.
In San Francisco, 28 patients died of AIDS in August. Last August, it was only 13. in August, 1982, just five. In August of 1981, no one had even heard of AIDS. The epidemic is gathering strength, and without any treatment or even a test for the virus yet, a nightmare lies just over the horizon. The number of cases is growing geometrically, doubling about every ten months.
The U.S. Postal Service and its two largest labor unions agreed to return to the bargaining table on September 11 in an attempt to resolve a bitter and protracted dispute, the Postal Service announced. The American Postal Workers Union and the National Association of Letter Carriers, which together represent more than 500,000 of the agency’s 600,000 employees, agreed to waive further independent fact-finding and arbitration, the Postal Service said. The key divisive issue is the management demand that employees accept a three-year wage freeze and that newly hired employees be paid at a rate averaging 23% less than that for current employees.
House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Massachusetts) and Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr. (R-Tennessee) agreed to press for compromises on defense spending and other key issues left on the congressional agenda and set October 5 as a tentative adjournment date. It was clear that both sides were prepared to give somewhat on the deadlocked Pentagon budget.
A federal judge in Miami granted a 24-hour stay to convicted killer Nollie Lee Martin, who had faced execution this morning for the 1977 stabbing death of a convenience store clerk. U.S. District Judge James King granted the stay so that Martin’s attorneys could take the case to an appeals court in Atlanta. Meanwhile, the Atlanta appeals court said it would hear arguments today in the case of convicted killer Ernest John Dobbert Jr., whose execution also had been set for this morning. The court on Tuesday granted Dobbert a 27-hour stay, effective until 10 AM Friday.
A court has upheld the award of more than $1 million to the family of a man shot to death by the police 26 years ago, and the president of the Milwaukee City Council said today that the city should “put this tragic episode behind us” rather than appeal. A three-judge Federal appeals court panel in Chicago, upholding major portions of an award set in 1981 by a Federal jury, on Tuesday ruled unanimously that the city award the family of Daniel Bell $1.04 million. Mr. Bell, a 23-year-old black man, was shot in the back at point-blank range on the night of February 2, 1958, by Thomas Grady, a white Milwaukee police officer. The circumstances surrounding the slaying were covered up for 20 years. Then Mr. Grady was brought to trial and sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to perjury and homicide by reckless conduct.
New York Mayor Edward Koch exceeded his executive powers when he issued a directive prohibiting organizations that do business with the city from discriminating against homosexuals, a state judge said in ruling the directive unconstitutional. Three religious groups that provide social services to the needy and are under contract to the city argued in court on the narrow legal point of the mayor’s power, but said outside court that they did not want to appear to condone homosexual conduct by signing city contracts.
Jack Elder, director of a Roman Catholic-sponsored refugee center, believed two Salvadorans were fleeing a war zone and he had no intention of violating immigration laws when he drove them to a Texas border bus station, an attorney argued in court Tuesday. Mr. Elder, 40 years old, whose center is near the Texas-Mexico border, is facing charges of conspiracy and transporting illegal aliens.
The widespread practice of feeding antibiotics to cattle to speed their growth creates potentially deadly bacteria that can infect humans, the national Centers for Disease Control said in a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. It added that the bacteria are themselves immune to antibiotic treatment. The study said 17 persons became sick and one died because a herd of South Dakota cattle was fed antibiotics. The cattle industry has argued for years that the practice of feeding cattle antibiotics is safe because the likelihood of producing an antibiotic-resistant disease that strikes humans is remote.
Abortion is “the critical issue in this campaign,” according to Archbishop Bernard F. Law of Boston. He read a strongly worded statement signed by himself and 17 other Roman Catholic bishops in New England that urged American voters to make abortion their central concern when they cast ballots.
Church-state separation is a principle that has recently suffered “serious erosion,” according to a group of Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish leaders who urged all candidates to reject the notion that “only one brand of politics or religion meets with God’s approval.”
A libel trial that opened in Atlanta may turn into a wide-ranging examination of the controversial theories of William B. Shockley, the Nobel Prize- winning physicist who has argued that blacks are genetically inferior in intelligence to whites. Attorneys for Dr. Shockley say they plan to call other scholars to support his genetic arguments.
A U.S. sports medicine researcher says he is “astounded but not surprised” by a published report that says the use of banned drugs, such as anabolic steroids, may have dramatically increased the death rate among Soviet athletes. Foreign Report, a magazine published in London by The Economist, said in an article that 59 Soviet athletes, many in their 20s, have died in the past 25 years from the excessive use of stimulants, steroids and other drugs. The report, published August 16, listed among the suspected drug victims Alexander Belov, a Soviet basketball player who died in 1978 at 27, and Viktor Blinov, a Soviet hockey player who died in 1968 at 23. Overall, the mortality rate for Soviet athletes in their prime is 2.5 times higher than for western nations.
Cal Ripken’s first-inning error lets in a score, and that’s it as the Detroit Tigers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 1–0. Juan Berenguer (8–9) is the winner with Willie Hernandez picking up his 28th save, as Berenguer and Hernandez combined on a three-hitter. Mike Flanagan goes all the way in the loss. Detroit’s magic number is now 15.
The Toronto Blue Jays, who have futilely chased the Detroit Tigers all season, stumbled again last night. With a critical three-game series with the Tigers awaiting them at home this weekend, the Blue Jays fell to the Yankees, 4–3, in 10 innings and tumbled eight and one-half games behind the American League East leaders. Don Baylor’s 25th home run of the season — but only his first since August 18 — ended the game. Dave Righetti pitched three innings in relief and got the win. “Left too many guys, swung at too many bad balls, gave up a home run – that about sums it up,” said Bobby Cox, the Blue Jays’ disappointed manager. Asked if he was nevertheless looking forward to an exciting series with the Tigers, Cox added, “It would be a helluva lot more exciting if we won tonight.”
Frank White’s two-run double triggered a three-run eighth that gave the Kansas City Royals a share of first place in the American League West with a 4–1 victory over the Minnesota Twins. The Royals’ Pat Sheridan looped a one-out double to left in the eighth off the starter Mike Smithson (13–12) and Ron Davis came on in relief. After Darryl Motley popped out, Davis walked Jorge Orta intentionally to get to White who lined a shot down the left field line to score both runners for a 3–1 lead. Charlie Liebrandt scattered eight hits, walked none and struck out two over eight innings to improve his record to 9–6.
Fred Lynn went 4 for 4 and tied a California record by driving in at least one run in eight consecutive games as the California Angels defeated the Cleveland Indians by a score of 11–4. Bruce Kison (4–3), the winner, yielded 10 hits and four runs while striking out five and walking five in seven innings.
The Milwaukee Brewers downed the Boston Red Sox, 7–5. Doug Loman, who joined the Brewers Monday, stroked a bases-loaded double in a five-run fifth inning to lead Milwaukee to victory.
The defending champions of the American League West, the Chicago White Sox, missed a chance to move within 4½ games of the top by blowing a game at Chicago to the Oakland A’s, losing 5–4. The White Sox had a 3–2 lead going into the eighth inning, but Bruce Bochte, who homered for the A’s first run, singled in the tying run. In the ninth, Tony Phillips hit his third home run off the season to break the tie and give Ray Burris his 12th victory. The victory put the A’s in fourth place, a point ahead of the White Sox. Both are 5½ games behind and still in the race.
The Seattle Mariners edged the Texas Rangers, 6–5, in ten innings. Phil Bradley tripled to open the 10th inning and scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly by Phil Bradley. Dave Stewart (5–13) had retired 12 in a row since giving up a game-tying home run to Jim Pressly in the sixth before Bradley tripled.
David Palmer pitched six scoreless innings of three-hit relief and singled home a fourth-inning run tonight as the Montreal Expos ended Chicago’s four-game winning streak by beating the Cubs, 3–1. Palmer (6–3) took over from the starter Dan Schatzeder, who left with an inflamed left elbow after pitching the first inning. Dick Grapenthin relieved Palmer in the seventh and got his second save, despite allowing Chicago’s only run in the eighth.
With their expectations falling and rising from one night to the next, the New York Mets considered a victory this evening crucial to their effort to catch the Cubs. “All right, we got it to six,” said Keith Hernandez. “Now let’s get to five tomorrow and we’ll be fine.” The Mets defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates by 4–2, cutting the margin between them and first-place Chicago to six games with 23 remaining. But news of the Cub defeat did not reach the Mets until after they were in the clubhouse, congratulating their pitchers for inducing four double plays and getting 20 of the Pirate outs on ground balls, and thanking their stars for a series of circumstances that helped them out of a bind. Doug Sisk pitched three sterling innings of relief for the save.
Willie McGee went 5 for 5 and singled home the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, capping a four-run St. Louis rally that gave the Cardinals a 6–5 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. The Philadelphia starter, Jerry Koosman, had allowed seven hits and took a 5–2 lead into the ninth, but left after Terry Pendleton led off with a single.
Atlanta Braves star centerfielder Dale Murphy makes a rare throwing error in the 8th inning that leads to a 4–3 win for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Pedro Guerrero went to third on the error, and Greg Brock singled him home a moment later with the winning run. Reliever Burt Hooton gets the win for Los Angeles.
At San Francisco, the Houston Astros’ star hurler Nolan Ryan (12–9) pitches 8 innings, yielding six hits and striking out 8 in beating the Giants, 4–1. Ryan strikes out Giants Chili Davis to nudge ahead of Steve Carlton in all time strike outs. Phil Garner drove in two runs for Houston with a single and a sacrifice fly.
The San Diego Padres win a wild one with the Cincinnati Reds, prevailing 15–11. Both teams finished with 17 hits, but the Reds left 11 men on base; the Padres only six. Steve Garvey had a double and 3 RBIs. Craig Lefferts gets his third victory in relief. The Padres had trailed 7–0 after two innings, and 8–3 going into the sixth. But they batted around in the sixth — and then did it again in the seventh.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1209.03 (-3.32).
Born:
Ryan Potulny, NHL centre (Philadelphia Flyers, Edmonton Oilers, Chicago Blackhawks, Ottawa Senators), in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Ryan Potulny, NHL centre (Los Angeles Kings), in Portage, Michigan.
History Diaries 