A Soviet official reiterated today that until the West removed its new nuclear missiles from Europe, there would be no arms limitation negotiations with the United States. The official, Vladimir Petrovsky, head of the international affairs department of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, said at the end of the first two weeks of the General Assembly debate that removal of the Pershing missiles was the “only obstacle” to such talks. Speaking at a news conference, Mr. Petrovsky promised a rich harvest of negotiations, once the weapons were withdrawn, on the limitation of nuclear and strategic arms, on chemical weapons and on banning the use of nuclear weapons in outer space.
A unit of the U.S. Fifth Mechanized Infantry Division was hit by a simulated gas attack during CERTAIN FURY, an American exercise in mid-September. The unit’s staff told reporters that, after seven hours of trying, it had failed to get Washington’s required approval to retaliate in kind because of a complicated consultation procedure. Retaliation in kind to a chemical warfare attack must be approved by the highest military authorities. The defenders in the exercise were following that procedure after being surprised by the simulated gas attack.
General Bernard W. Rogers, the Atlantic Alliance’s military commander in Europe, said in a recent interview that he had problems with the role the political authorities of other nations would have in any decision to use chemical weapons in actual war. Forces prepared to use chemical weapons, the general said, would be unlikely to do so without consulting the allies. But, he added, the procedure for consulting has not been established. “I would like to see it formalized as it is with nuclear weapons,” he said. The failure in consultation disclosed by the exercise was only one of what officials say are weaknesses in the chemical warfare preparedness of the United States and its allies.
United States and allied forces in Western Europe have improved measures to protect the security of American nuclear weapons there, a senior Defense Department official said today. The official, in a Pentagon briefing for reporters, said that seeking additional security improvements would be high on the agenda for a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers next week in Italy. The official asserted that threats to nuclear-weapons security by terrorists, political activists and Soviet commandos were increasing.
Officers and diplomats consulted during the exercises said the greatest imbalance between American and Soviet forces in Western Europe is in chemical warfare. Military analysts say they believe the Soviet high command considers its present quantitative superiority in men, tanks, guns and planes — plus chemical warfare resources — to be sufficient for a victory in Western Europe using conventional forces alone. Officials say Moscow’s abilities are based on several chemical warfare plants that produce at least four types of chemical agents. These can be delivered by tactical rockets, ballistic missiles, multiple rocket launchers, artillery and mortars, bulk-filled bombs, cluster bombs and mines.
More than 80 East German refugees have sought asylum in West Germany by entering the West German Embassy in Prague, the Bonn Government said. The embassy closed its doors Thursday to visitors in an effort to keep more refugees from entering, but eight more East Germans climbed a rear wall to get in. The Bonn Government spokesman, Peter Boenisch, declined to disclose the exact number of people occupying the embassy, saying the disclosure could complicate negotiations to bring about their release. But he said it was “double the number that was originally reported, when the first number of about 40 came up.” He added, “Among these are more than 20 children, which makes the situation psychologically and otherwise difficult.”
The political future of the Italian Foreign Minister, Giulio Andreotti, was thrown into uncertainty today after a parliamentary vote on a demand for his resignation. Mr. Andreotti, a Christian Democrat, survived the secret ballot by 199 votes to 101, but only after the Communist Party’s 154 representatives decided to abstain. Political analysts said 50 to 70 members of the governing coalition voted against Mr. Andreotti. The vote was the first major political result of the extradition to Italy of Michele Sindona, the convicted financier. The motion, brought by two small parties, said Mr. Andreotti should resign because, they charged, he protected Mr. Sindona in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Pope John Paul II condemned organized crime, urging listeners in a southern Italian town to break “the tragic chain of vendettas” and end organized crime’s code of silence. In one of his strongest condemnations of organized crime, the Pope told a crowd in the Calabrian coastal village of Paola that the code “binds so many people in a type of squalid complicity dictated by fear.”
American tourism in Paris and London appears likely to continue setting records this fall. At a highly rated but out-of-the-way restaurant in Paris, there are nights when it seems only the staff speak French. And at Harrods, the London department store, clerks cannot stock enough Waterford crystal and tartan skirts for American customers.
The Reagan Administration plans to hold detailed talks next week with Prime Minister Shimon Peres and other senior Israeli officials on ways of dealing with serious problems in Israel’s economy, a senior Administration official said today. Mr. Peres, who became the head of a national unity Government last month, has already begun an austerity drive in Israel to bring down inflation, which is running at more than 400 percent a year. He has said Israel will look for long-term American help in its efforts toward economic recovery. But before Mr. Peres’s arrival on Monday for three days of talks that will include a White House meeting on Tuesday, Administration officials said today that there were no plans for any announcements of stepped-up American aid, beyond the $2.6 billion for the current fiscal year just approved by Congress.
The Prime Minister of Lebanon appealed to the United Nations and the United States today for help in negotiating “a total Israeli withdrawal” from his country. Prime Minister Rashid Karami told the General Assembly: “We are awaiting the results of the ongoing endeavors, whether on the part of the Secretary General of the United Nations or the United States of America or other friendly countries, and call upon them to deploy all possible efforts so that Lebanon may find a way out of its ordeal.” Mr. Karami had sought a meeting with President Reagan this week, but an Administration official said in Washington today that it would not be possible to fit a meeting into the President’s crowded schedule. Arab diplomats at the United Nations expressed disappointment over the reponse.
Five Sikh gunmen killed one person and wounded 18 today in renewed violence in the northern state of Punjab, the Press Trust of India reported. The news agency said the gunmen, who shouted slogans demanding a separate Sikh state called Khalistan, fired as they ran through a crowded marketplace at Sur Singh, 15 miles from the Sikh holy city of Amritsar.
The Indian Government announced today that it was extending direct control over Punjab for another six months.
Security forces seized about 125 Tamil youths today in Sri Lanka’s northern district, the police said. They said the youths were detained in the town of Point Pedro, where guerrillas believed to be Tamil separatists attacked a police station and two state buildings with bombs Thursday. National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali said Thursday that nearly 500 youths were arrested in August after stepped up guerrilla attacks. Only 60 are still in custody, he said.
New diplomatic moves aimed at finding a political solution in Cambodia have begun in Southeast Asia, Japan and New York. But the tasks to be accomplished – bringing about an end to civil war while arranging a withdrawal of Vietnamese forces – are so great that diplomats, political leaders and scholars in the region suggest that, short of a dramatic gesture from Hanoi, negotiations are likely to drag on for years. Vietnam’s Foreign Minister, Nguyen Co Thach, who met this week with Thai leaders and then went to Tokyo to hear Japanese proposals for giving aid to Vietnam in return for a troop withdrawal, has been saying repeatedly that there is no new “peace plan.” Mr. Thach also plans to meet with Southeast Asian foreign ministers attending the United Nations General Assembly.
President Ferdinand E. Marcos accused the Archbishop of Manila of seeking to destabilize the nation by encouraging people to march in a Sunday demonstration. In a special televised statement, Mr. Marcos also warned business leaders and professionals that they faced arrest if they took part in the rally. Mr. Marcos charged that Jaime Cardinal Sin, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in the country, was violating separation of the church and state as prescribed by the nation’s Constitution.
Salvadoran rebels said they freed 8 army officers in exchange for 4 imprisoned rebel commanders and safe passage for 60 wounded guerrillas to travel to hospitals in six other countries. It was the largest exchange of prisoners in the four-and-a-half-year- old civil war in El Salvador. Salvadoran officials confirmed in telephone interviews that the exchanges had taken place but said they did not know whether four commanders were involved. The rebels said the prisoners were released in several stages over the last four months with the diplomatic assistance of Mexico, the Netherlands and Nicaragua.
An American court reinstated a suit by an American citizen who says his 14,000-acre ranch in Honduras was seized unconstitutionally by the United States military for use in training Salvadoran troops.
Argentine officials expressed doubt today about the Government’s ability to obtain guilty verdicts against nine former junta members charged in connection with the deaths of civilians in the 1970’s. The statements came in reaction to an action Thursday night by the federal court of Buenos Aires, which ordered the cases transferred from military to civilian courts. The prosecution process is more technical and the burden of proof stricter in a civilian court than in a military proceeding.
French President Francois Mitterrand held talks with the President of Chad today amid signs that a recent French-Libyan agreement to withdraw their troops from that north African country was being delayed. Hissen Habre, the Chadian leader, was reported to have been upset by the French failure to consult with him before announcing the withdrawal agreement, and Mr. Mitterrand’s meeting with him was regarded in Paris as part of an effort to soothe his feelings.
Saboteurs said to be Mozambique rebels blew up electrical lines from South Africa this week, a half hour after South African officials announced a negotiated cease-fire in Mozambique’s civil war, Mozambique’s press agency said today. It said the attack Wednesday had caused power shortages and residents had relied on power from local coal- burning plants since then. The rebels of the anti-Marxist Mozambique National Resistance have said they will continue fighting while bargaining with the Government through South Africa.
The space shuttle Challenger and a crew of seven astronauts rode into space on the 13th NASA Space Shuttle Mission (41G), and Dr. Sally K. Ride, one of two women on board, used the ship’s robotic arm today to shake loose balky solar panels on a $40 million scientific energy-monitoring satellite. The eight-day mission carries the largest crew in the history of space flight. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk. Marc Garneau became the first Canadian astronaut to fly to space. The shuttle’s crew of seven was the largest ever to fly on a single spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts. STS-41G completed 132 orbits of the Earth in 197.5 hours, before landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on October 13.
Today’s launching took place exactly one month since the Challenger’s sister ship Discovery returned from its maiden flight, and put United States space program into a stepped-up phase in which it plans to launch one of its three working shuttles each month for the next 14 months, and 16 in 1986. The energy-measuring satellite, which will be used to aid in the understanding of weather and climate, and several on-board manned experiments are designed to make this the most ambitious scientific mission in a decade for observing the earth and its resources. The flight is also to include the first space walk by an American woman, Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan. Ground controllers praised the perfect liftoff. “We feel very good,” said Thomas Utsman, director of shuttle operations at the Kennedy Space Center. “This is a harbinger of how well things can go in the future.”
[Ed: Well.]
Two days before they debate, Walter F. Mondale assailed President Reagan for failures of “leadership” and Mr. Reagan boldly scheduled a whistlestop train tour through Ohio, duplicating Harry S. Truman’s route in 1948.
President Reagan participates in a briefing to discuss efforts of the Department of Defense to reduce waste and achieve cost savings with Secretary Weinberger.
The President and First Lady view the movie “Country,” at Camp David.
A spending bill bogged down when House and Senate conferees, seeking a compromise, failed to resolve differences over aid to Nicaraguan rebels. House conferees insisted on a provision that would cut off aid to the rebels and Senate conferees opposed cutting off aid. The negotiators said they would resume talks Tuesday on the bill to finance most Federal Government operations for the fiscal year 1985.
Unemployment remained steady through September at a national rate of 7.3 percent, continuing the pattern of the past several months. Private economists said the rate’s stability had been expected because of a slowdown in the economic expansion and did not presage another recession in coming months. In July and August, the national unemployment rate was 7.4 percent.
Reagan Administration tax and budget policies have devastated poor blacks and threaten the fragile black middle class that has emerged in recent years, a new study said Thursday. The study, “Falling Behind: A Report on How Blacks Have Fared Under the Reagan Policies,” was done by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center on Budget and Public Priorities based on recent government and other research findings. Its major conclusion was that blacks, in terms of income, poverty status and unemployment levels, were worse off today than they were in 1980 and that the economic gap between blacks and whites had widened since 1980.
Depressed gasoline demand has led to layoffs and plant closings in a region of southeast Texas called the Golden Triangle, the heart of the Gulf Coast’s refining and petrochemical industry, and the place where Texas’s vast oil wealth began.
Automate or emigrate has become the new credo of export-producing plants in the industrial Middle West as the dollar has remained stubbornly strong overseas. Companies like Caterpillar Tractor, believing that the dollar would weaken, have cut their profit margins and swallowed losses to maintain overseas markets. Now, they wonder if the strong dollar is here to stay.
A suspect described by the sheriff as a “complete dummy” for seeking a $1 million ransom despite the well-publicized escape of the kidnapped victim was charged today with the kidnapping. Bond was set at $100,000 for David Wayne Lett, 32 years old, who was recently dismissed from his job at an electrical concern. “He was not your slick criminal,” said Lon Evans, Tarrant County sheriff. “In fact, it appears he was a complete dummy, very stupid. Frankly, we’re surprised he didn’t try to get the hell out of the country.” Sheriff Evans said the kidnapper kept making ransom demands long after the escape of his victim, Belinda Minyard, whose husband operates a 54- store chain of groceries.
A trailer park manager, frustrated by a four-month string of burglaries, has been charged with shooting a boy who came near a cache of stolen items the manager set up to lure thieves, the authorities said today. Everett Bowen Ballard Jr., 48 years old, who owns and manages the Lakeview Trailer Park, was charged Thursday with aggravated assault and jailed after a justice of the peace, Homero Jasso, set bond at $50,000. The boy, Juan Antonio Sauceda, 11, of Weslaco, was listed in stable condition at Knapp Memorial Hospital after being hit with a shotgun blast in the abdomen and arm. Investigators said they did not believe he was involved in the burglaries. Erasmo Bravo, chief of investigations for the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department, said police investigators had been with Mr. Ballard less than two hours before the shooting occurred and that he did not tell them he planned to stake out the scene.
Three teen-age boys who killed a 23-year-old homosexual by throwing him off a bridge because they said he propositioned one of them were sentenced today to indeterminate terms at the Maine Youth Center. The boys, James F. Baines, 15 years old, Shawn I. Mabry, 16, and Daniel Ness, 17, were ordered confined to the south Portland institution until no later than February 1988, when the oldest of the three turns 21. Judge David Cox specified no minimum term. The three, who had been charged with murder but pleaded guilty this week to manslaughter, faced maximum sentences of confinement to the center until their 21st birthdays. As the judge pronounced sentence, about two dozen members of the Bangor Gay-Straight Coalition rose to their feet and joined hands. Judge Cox ordered them to be seated. Judge Cox said today that the attack on Charles O. Howard, who drowned July 7 in Kenduskeag Stream, reflected society’s “prejudice, ignorance and intolerance.”
Walter Alston, a small-town man who managed the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers to seven pennants and four World Series championships in 23 years, was buried in Darrtown Cemetery today, near Oxford, Ohio. Friends and baseball associates paid their final respects on the campus of Miami University, from which he was graduated in 1935.
In Game Three of the American League Championship Series, Milt Wilcox and Willie Hernandez combine on a 1–0 three-hitter to give the Detroit Tigers a 3-game sweep of the Kansas City Royals. The first postseason game at Tiger Stadium in 12 years was a pitcher’s duel between Milt Wilcox and Charlie Leibrandt. Leibrandt pitched a complete game, allowing only one run and three hits, while Wilcox gave up two hits and struck out eight Royals with Willie Hernández pitching the ninth inning for the save. Marty Castillo’s 2nd inning groundout to drove in Chet Lemon for game’s lone run as the Tigers completed the three-game sweep and advanced to the World Series. This was their first pennant in 16 years and the ninth in the team’s history.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1182.53 (-4.86)
Born:
Nate Thompson, NHL centre (Boston Bruins, New York Islanders, Tampa Bay Lightning, Anaheim Ducks, Ottawa Senators, Los Angeles Kings, Montreal Canadiens, Philadelphia Flyers, Winnipeg Jets), in Anchorage, Alaska.
Oliver Hoyte, NFL fullback and linebacker (Dallas Cowboys), in Tampa, Florida.
Christian Gaddis, NFL guard and tackle (Buffalo Bills), in Jacksonville, Florida.
Tiana Benjamin, English actress (‘Chelsea Fox’ – “EastEnders”), Enfield, London, England, United Kingdom.
Died:
Leonard Rossiter, 57, British actor (“Rising Damp”, “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin”), of a heart attack.
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