President Reagan’s national security policy, since his term began, has been to talk loudly, act cautiously and construct a big economic and military stick, an examination of his record shows. Building that stick was the overwhelming priority. The goal of Administration officials, as they acknowledged all along, was to get that internal process well under way before turning to the external diplomatic goals. To them, that was the only way to provide the strength to stem what they saw as the tide of Soviet power. On Inauguration Day in 1981, Mr. Reagan set out two basic goals: to build up the economy and the military. These were to be virtually his only constant themes in the next three and a half years. Almost all of his other foreign goals and policies were to change, at least rhetorically. The pattern has been for the White House to deal with such subjects as the Soviet Union, the Middle East, human rights, China and Central America only when compelled to do so by external events and domestic political pressure.
The Administration quickly put together what became a five-year, $1.7 trillion military budget, some several hundred billion more than Carter Administration projections. The goal was to redress the military balance with the Soviet Union. As late as mid-1982, Mr. Reagan was still saying that Moscow had “a definite margin of superiority.” Now, Mr. Reagan and most of his top aides, not including Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, say the balance has been re-established so that the United States can undertake with confidence arms- control negotiations with Moscow.
A High Court judge, Sir David Nicholls, ordered the seizure of the assets — totaling nearly $10.5 million — of Britain’s National Union of Mineworkers for failure to pay a contempt-of-court fine of more than $220,000 growing out of the nation’s 72-month-old coal strike. The union did not pay the fine, imposed October 10, by Wednesday’s deadline. Union leader Arthur Scargill had dismissed as “utter rubbish” Nicholls’ earlier ruling that the strike is illegal in two counties because the union did not take a strike vote there.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher denounced one of President Francois Mitterrand’s bodyguards for planting explosives at the French Ambassador’s home to test Scotland Yard’s detection skills. While Mr. Mitterrand was in southwest England as part of his state visit to celebrate 80 years of Anglo-French solidarity, the French Embassy responded that the whole thing had been a “regrettable misunderstanding.”
Sicilian police arrested 56 more suspected mobsters and, following up disclosures in September by Mafioso-turned-informer Tommaso Buscetta, issued warrants for 64 others. All of those arrested in the roundup were charged with criminal association and drug trafficking. Several were also accused of murder. As part of the sweep, police arrested Francesco Greco, 50, a brother of fugitive Michele Greco, who has been called the “reigning pope” of the syndicate.
Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou of Greece described the Polish leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, as a “patriot” and criticized the Solidarity trade union movement as “negative and dangerous” in remarks as he flew home from an official visit to Warsaw. He is the first leader of a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to visit Poland since Prime Minister Jaruzelski imposed martial law and outlawed Solidarity in 1981. Mr. Papandreou, whose Socialist Government was the only member of the Atlantic alliance to reject the economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies after the imposition of martial law, added that the United States and other Western countries were seeking to “destabilize” the Soviet bloc through their support of Solidarity. The Prime Minister singled out the United States, in describing economic sanctions as an attack on the stability of Eastern Europe.
[Ed: Papandreou was a fucking asshole.]
Two more men have been detained in connection with the abduction of a pro-Solidarity priest who is still missing, the Interior Ministry said today. The arrest of the two men, who were not identified, raised to three the number of people being held in connection with the kidnapping last Friday of the priest, the Rev. Jerzy Popiełuszko, on a highway near Torun. On Wednesday it was announced that a policeman identified only as Grzegorz P. would face charges in connection with the incident. Fears that the priest may be dead were voiced by Jozef Cardinal Glemp, the primate. “Not having any signs of life from Father Popieluszko, we fear that a killing may have occurred in Poland of the kind exemplified in countries afflicted by the plague of terrorism,” he said in a statement that was distributed by P.A.P., the Government press agency. Jerzy Urban, a Government spokesman, said the authorities had no connection with the abduction despite the implication of the policeman.
Four American clerics in Dublin, including Archbishop John J. O’Connor of New York, said they were worried about violations of human and civil rights in Northern Ireland, and hoped Americans would press Britain to seek a political solution. “We have been asked repeatedly by those whose positions and convictions we respect not to let the whole Irish cause and the Irish problem be seen merely as a restraint of violence on the part of the Provisional I.R.A. or anyone else,” Archbishop O’Connor said, “but to look much more carefully and with much greater and careful concern at the provocation of violence, the injustices that are alleged to underlie the violence.”
The Speaker of the West German Parliament resigned today after being implicated in a political payoff scandal. The official, Rainer Barzel, 60 years old, has been accused of accepting half a million dollars from the Flick holding company in exchange for giving up the leadership of the Christian Democratic Party in 1973 in favor of Helmut Kohl, now the Chancellor. On Wednesday, Mr. Barzel denied before a parliamentary subcommittee investigating the Flick affair that he had accepted a payoff, insisting that he had been properly paid as a legal consultant. But his testimony disappointed Chancellor Kohl and other party leaders, and they pressed for the Speaker’s resignation.
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres’ 10-member inner-Cabinet has approved a plan for the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, Armed Forces radio reported. The plan calls for Syria’s agreement not to occupy territory vacated by Israel and to prevent Palestinian guerrillas from returning to the region. Armed Forces radio said a key element in the decision was a tacit agreement by Syria to those demands. The plan will be submitted to the full 25-member Israeli Cabinet on Sunday, the radio said.
Four Lebanese employees of the Associated Press were released unharmed more than 30 hours after they were seized by gunmen near their office in West Beirut. The four arrived in their own car at the agency’s office in the main shopping center of Hamra in mostly Moslem West Beirut. A crowd had gathered outside the office to greet them. “They are free, and all appear to be okay,” said G. G. LaBelle, an A.P. correspondent. The employees said that Lebanese Cabinet minister Nabih Berri, leader of the Shia Muslim Amal militia, helped obtain their freedom. Lebanon’s state radio later said that suspects have been detained by Amal in connection with the kidnapping. The AP employees said they were never told why they were abducted.
To relieve the famine in Ethiopia that is threatening 6 million people, the Reagan Administration has committed itself to provide $45 million in food aid, according to the Administrator of the Agency for International Development.
Iraq said its navy attacked four vessels in an Iranian convoy in the Persian Gulf, sinking three and setting the fourth ablaze. An Iraqi military spokesman said the ships were headed for the port of Bandar Khomeini and that the attack “underlines our determination” to tighten the Iraqi blockade in the four-year-old Persian Gulf War. There was no independent confirmation of the Iraqi account.
A French television reporter captured in Afghanistan by government and Soviet troops September 17 and sentenced to 18 years in prison has been released and is free to return home, an Afghan diplomat said in Paris. Afghan Charge d’Affaires Abdullah Keshmand said that Jacques Abouchar has been pardoned by Afghan President Babrak Karmal. “He has been pardoned by President Babrak Karmal and has been freed and he can return with a French delegation that will leave for Kabul today,” Mr. Keshmand said. The delegation was to comprise a Socialist member of Parliament and a Foreign Ministry official. Abouchar was sentenced for entering Afghanistan illegally and associating with rebels fighting the Moscow-backed government.
The case against several members of the Philippine armed forces, including General Fabian C. Ver, the Chief of Staff, for plotting to kill the opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. was handed to a Government ombudsman today for investigation and prosecution. The head of the ombudsman’s office appointed a three-member tribunal that will review the findings of the citizen commission’s two reports and decide what indictments, if any, should be handed down.
A Salvadoran union official lied last week when he asserted his son had been killed by a rightist death squad, he admitted in a meeting with journalists. The false account from the official, Alirio Montes, had led the United States embassy to denounce death squad violence last Saturday and demand an immediate Government investigation.
Bolivian President Hernan Siles Zuazo, 71, began a hunger strike as a “supreme protest” over charges that his government is linked to the country’s $2 billion-a-year cocaine traffic. The opposition-dominated Bolivian Congress has accused the president of “negotiating with drug trafficking elements” and ordered an investigation into the government’s involvement. Siles announced the fast on television but did not say how long it will last. He vowed to “continue attending to my office with the certainty that my gesture is not in vain.”
[Ed: I’m sure the Narcos will be heartbroken to hear about your hunger strike, and will immediately reform and mend their evil ways. *Eyes rolling so hard as to produce gravitational frame dragging…]
Renewed rioting and arson erupted today as the South African Government defended its crackdown on riot-stricken townships and said it was committed to political improvements in black communities. A police spokesman said tear gas was fired into a crowd of black youths in the township of Kathelong, on the eastern outskirts of Johannesburg, after they had stoned a vehicle. There were also several incidents in Soweto, southwest of Johannesburg. Two delivery vans were stoned and a post office vehicle was set on fire. The South African radio, defending the crackdown, said: “The short-lived operation is nothing more than an effort to put a stop to continued lawlessness and thuggery. South Africa has committed itself irrevocably to further constitutional reform involving black communities.”
The USSR performs a nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya.
Walter F. Mondale shifted tactics 12 days before the election, invoking broad idealistic themes and appearing in visually pleasing settings calculated to look good on television. In Cleveland, he called on the nation to stop “this new championship of caring only for yourself.”
Charles T. Manatt, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, estimated today that Walter F. Mondale was ahead of President Reagan in only 4 of the 50 states: New York, Massachusetts, Oregon and Minnesota, the Democratic nominee’s home state. But Mr. Manatt, commenting on various new poll readings that suggest fresh support for Mr. Reagan, offered his own conservative estimate in once again predicting a Truman-like 11th- hour upset victory by Mr. Mondale. “Nothing discourages me in this particular campaign,” he said. “We need a 100-million voter turnout to win and we think we are going to get that.”
Vice President Bush, at a campaign session in Syracuse, used his new method for getting out the re-election message, the question-and-answer session. Answering a hostile question about how President Reagan’s economic program affected “desperate people,” he said, “I think they are getting help from a recovery that is so stimulating.”
Geraldine A. Ferraro, traveling to the heart of California’s computer industry on her third straight day of campaigning in the state, declared today that “high-tech industries face the same competitive challenge as our smokestack industries” and would suffer under a second Reagan Administration. “Today, we are in danger of foreclosing the future because Mr. Reagan is failing the test of leadership,” she said at a rally at Apple Computer Inc. The Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee said new industries of the Sun Belt of the West and Southwest should pay attention to the difficulties of the older steel and heavy manufacturing businesses in the East and Middle West.
President Reagan is entered into the Sportscaster’s Hall of Fame.
President Reagan receives the “Hero of Young America” award from the World Almanac.
Adjustments in peak-hour schedules for airlines were approved by the Civil Aeronautics Board to reduce congestion that has caused a record number of flight delays this year. More than 1,300 changes, affecting New York’s three major airports and terminals in Chicago, Atlanta, and Denver, will go into schedules that take effect Sunday.
Scientists have identified the virus that causes the principal form of hepatitis transmitted through blood transfusions, according to Margaret M. Heckler, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Federal scientists’ findings, Mrs. Heckler said, could lead to a test to identify contaminated blood supplies and to the development of a vaccine to prevent the disease caused by transfusions. Federal researchers have identified the virus that causes non-A, non-B hepatitis, the principal form of disease that accounts for 90% of the hepatitis transmitted through blood transfusions, and they say the findings could lead to an effective screening test to identify contaminated blood supplies. Scientists from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health said the agent, or closely related group of agents, that causes this type of hepatitis is an elusive retrovirus. Members of this family of viruses have been implicated in causing a number of human diseases, including rare forms of cancer and acquired immune deficiency syndrome, also known as AIDS, as well as various animal diseases.
Senate candidates are raising and spending money about twice as fast as they did when this year’s seats were last contested six years ago, with the 65 general election candidates raising more than $122 million over that six-year period through September 30, Federal Election Commission records show.
A Senate panel, saying that organized crime extends far beyond the Mafia, said it is time for a comprehensive review of the government’s 16-year-old strike force program against the underworld. The subcommittee report said the strike forces often wrongly regard organized crime as limited to Cosa Nostra families and their accomplices. The strike forces, set up by the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration, have offices in 17 states and coordinate efforts by the U.S. Justice and Treasury departments and other law enforcement agencies to move against organized crime figures.
Despite economic growth, there is a widening gap between the needs of cities and their ability to pay for them, a joint congressional advisory panel reported. In releasing the report, Rep. Parren J. Mitchell (D-Maryland), Joint Economic subcommittee chairman, called for measures to target cities for special federal attention and support and for a jobs program to put urban unemployed to work rebuilding the deteriorating sewers, streets and services in aging cities.
A trustee representing John Z. DeLorean’s bankrupt automobile manufacturing company has filed a $100 million lawsuit charging the former automobile executive, his estranged wife and more than a dozen of his associates with fraud. The trustee, David W. Allard Jr. of Detroit, has also filed a $150 million lawsuit against Arthur Andersen & Company, the accounting firm which examined the DeLorean Motor Company’s financial statements. One lawsuit contends that Mr. DeLorean spent more than $17 million of the company’s money on personal expenses and charges that the company allowed his wife to use company money to pay her servants and hotel bills. The other accuses the accounting firm of failing to discover or disclose “to an appropriate level of management” the company’s financial irregularities. Mr. DeLorean was acquitted in August of cocaine conspiracy charges. Neither his lawyer nor a spokesman at Arthur Andersen’s Chicago headquarters returned telephone calls seeking comment on the lawsuits.
Daniel Escobedo, who gained national fame when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his 1961 murder conviction because he was not offered a lawyer during police questioning, was sentenced in Chicago to 12 years in prison for molesting his 12-year-old stepdaughter. Escobedo, 46, stood impassively as Judge Thomas J. Fitzgerald handed down the sentence. Escobedo, who maintained his innocence, was convicted on two counts of taking indecent liberties with a child. The girl, now a 14-year-old student in Iowa, testified that she was molested twice by Escobedo while they were alone.
The Justice Department obtained a court order barring General Motors Corp.’s financial credit subsidiary from discriminating against American Indians in making auto loans. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Daniel F. Rinzel, of the department’s civil rights division, said a consent decree containing the prohibition was filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The City Commission voted 3 to 2 today to dismiss City Manager Howard Gary, the highest-ranking black in Miami government. He was given 30 days to request a hearing on his dismissal. Mayor Maurice A. Ferre and Commissioners Joe Carollo and Demetrio Perez Jr. voted to dismiss Mr. Gary, while Commissioners Miller J. Dawkins and J. L. Plummer voted for him. Mayor Ferre said after the vote: “My position is that the management style of Howard Gary is not acceptable. There were just too many things that were not functioning properly.” Mr. Gary, 38 years old, was selected by the commission in June 1981, but lately had fallen out of favor with some commissioners. He enraged many city officials by dismissing Police Chief Kenneth Harms on January 27. After the vote, Mr. Gary said he was disappointed but said he thought his record would show “that I’m the best city manager the city of Miami ever had.” He added, “I have to live with myself and I can.”
Velma Barfield, condemned to death for murder, has chosen to die by lethal injection. Her execution is scheduled for November 2. But she has left the door open to another appeal, her attorney, Jimmy Little, said today. Mrs. Barfield, who will be 52 years old Monday, was convicted of poisoning her boyfriend and has confessed to poisoning three other people, including her mother. Her case has been reviewed three times by the United States Supreme Court and Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. has rejected her appeal for clemency.
Citrus producers in Florida who were forced to burn seedlings purchased from seven nurseries afflicted by citrus canker will get Federal compensation for their losses, Agriculture Secretary John R. Block said today. His announcement broadens an earlier “extraordinary emergency” declaration that had included only the owners of infested nurseries where stock had been burned. The Federal Government will share the cost of the payment program with the state on a 50-50 basis. The state estimates seven million seedlings and plants have been or are being destroyed because of the disease.
The actress Vanessa Redgrave told jurors today that she had tried and failed to persuade officials of the Boston Symphony Orchestra not to cancel her appearances as a concert narrator because of her political views. The actress, an outspoken supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, is suing the Boston Symphony in Federal District Court here, charging that it broke her contract and infringed on her civil rights by canceling her role as an opera narrator at the orchestra’s 100th anniversary celebrations in 1982. The 47-year-old actress testified that she was “thrilled” when her agent told her the orchestra would pay her $31,000 for five performances of Stravinsky’s “Oedipus Rex.” But orchestra officials cancelled the performances. They said Miss Redgrave’s support of the P.L.O. could lead to disruption and possibly violence at performances planned for Symphony Hall in Boston and Carnegie Hall in New York.
Thunderstorms dumped more than 8½ inches of rain on parts of Houston, flooding roads to the height of car hoods, stalling vehicles, prompting schools to close and forcing residents from their waterlogged homes. The storm “will rate with one of the most severe storms we’ve had,” said Jim Green, director of the area flood control district. High water, waist deep in places, forced some people to board fire department airboats or flatbed trucks as they scurried to higher ground. No serious injuries were reported.
King Boudouin opens the Museum for Modern Art in Brussels.
“Give My Regards to Broad Street” premieres (Gotham Theater-NYC).
Yogi Berra, the Yankees’ manager during the 1984 season, no longer is the Yankees’ manager-in-waiting during the 1984-85 off-season. The wait, which automatically goes with the job, ended yesterday when George Steinbrenner, the team’s principal owner, announced that Berra, whose contract runs through the 1985 season, would be the team’s manager in 1985.
Ron Meyer, whose unpopular demands alienated players but who helped turn them into winners, was dismissed yesterday as coach of the New England Patriots. Patrick Sullivan, the team’s general manager, said the change was made to avoid “distractions and turmoil.” But it also came the day after Meyer had dismissed an assistant coach against Sullivan’s wishes. Sullivan, whose family owns the team, replaced the 43-year-old Meyer with the 51-year-old Raymond Berry, a Hall of Fame player whom Sullivan described as “a very stable man.” Berry, who had been a receiver for 13 years with the Baltimore Colts, had been out of football since being dismissed as a Patriots’ assistant coach after the 1981 season.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1211.02 (-5.41)
Born:
Katy Perry, American pop singer (“I Kissed A Girl”; “Teenage Dream”; “Firework”), and TV personality (American Idol, 2018-present), in Santa Barbara, California.
Sara Lumholdt, Swedish musician (A-Teens), in Stockholm, Sweden.
Dante Rosario, NFL tight end (Carolina Panthers, Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos, San Diego Chargers, Chicago Bears), in Beaverton, Oregon.
Arron Sears, NFL guard (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), in Russellville, Arkansas.
Leah Rush, WNBA forward (Chicago Sky), in Sunnyside, Washington.
Died:
Pascale Ogier, 24, French actress (“Ghost Dance”), dies of a heart attack, probably caused by a heart murmur condition she had since age 12, combined with drug use.
History Diaries 