Poland’s Interior Minister said an officer in his agency confessed to killing a pro-Solidarity priest who was kidnapped eight days ago, but the minister, General Czeslaw Kiszczak, said the confession could not be confirmed. He identified the officer as Grzegorz Piotrowski, a captain in the Interior Ministry. The captain and two lieutenants identified as accomplices were formally charged yesterday in connection with the kidnapping of the Rev. Jerzy Popiełuszko.
A French television journalist arrived here today after being released by Afghanistan, which had sentenced him to 18 years in prison for having entered the country illegally with insurgents. The journalist, Jacques Abouchar, 53 years old, a producer-reporter for the French network Antenne 2, was released Saturday and was flown here on a chartered French plane. He appeared relaxed and in good health when he arrived at Orly Airport. Mr. Abouchar was sentenced on October 20 to an 18-year prison term for having entered Afghanistan without a visa. He was charged with aiding insurgents and other offenses, which he denied. Soviet troops had seized him September 16 when he entered Afghan territory with rebels from the border post of Chaman, in Pakistan. Three other members of his television crew fled to Pakistan when they were ambushed by the troops, but Mr. Abouchar was captured.
British mine union leader Arthur Scargill said his union will sue the government for deducting $18 a week from the welfare checks of striking mine workers. The government has ordered the union’s weekly $18 strike benefit withheld from state-issued welfare checks. Scargill said last week’s High Court order seizing the assets of the National Union of Mineworkers for contempt of court made it impossible for the union to pay the strike benefit to miners. Therefore, Scargill maintains, the government should discontinue the deductions.
Tens of thousands of British anti-nuclear protesters formed a human chain around the vast shipyard where Britain’s new Trident nuclear missile submarine fleet is to be built. The demonstrators converged on Barrow-in-Furness in northwest England where four nuclear-powered submarines, each capable of carrying 16 U.S.-built Trident missiles, are to be built at the Vickerstown shipyard between 1986 and the early 1990s. No arrests were reported.
The former director of a British charity accused Britain and the United States of deliberately withholding aid from Ethiopia in the hope that a famine would topple the Marxist government. Charles Elliott, until last month director of Christian Aid told the Sunday Observer newspaper that the West hoped for the same result as in the 1973-74 Ethiopian famine, which brought down Emperor Haile Selassie. He said the thinking in Washington and London for the last two years had been, “If there was another famine, it would serve the Ethiopian government right.”
Six East Germans, who were among some 150 refugees at the West Germany Embassy in Prague, have gone home without assurance they will be allowed to emigrate, a spokesman for the West German Government said today. The refugees had been trying to put pressure on the East Germans to grant them permission to emigrate to West Germany. Two other East Germans, a pregnant woman and a male friend, left the embassy in Prague on Tuesday, according to West Germany. Bonn closed the embassy to the public on October 4 after about 100 East Germans seeking asylum crowded inside.
The USSR performs a nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan. The Soviet Union detonated a powerful underground nuclear blast at its Semipalatinsk testing site, Sweden’s Uppsala seismological institute reported. The blast, the second Soviet test in three days, was believed to be of at least 150 kilotons and registered 6.2 on the Richter scale.
Naming a second gunman in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II would have no effect on the defense of Sergei I. Antonov, one of three Bulgarians indicted Friday in a purported assassination conspiracy, according to Mr. Antonov’s defense attorney.
The head of the Jesuit order, the Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, said he strongly supports Latin American theologians and church workers who seek to promote social justice, and that the teachings known as the theology of liberation must be “recognized as possible and necessary.” The Vatican recently criticized some elements of liberation theology.
Lebanon’s government gave its armed forces authority to attack ships trying to dock or unload at ports controlled by rival Muslim and Christian militias north and south of Beirut, radio newscasts reported. The decision was made in a Cabinet meeting called by President Amin Gemayel to devise emergency ways to curb an alarming depreciation of the Lebanese pound, the broadcasts said. Most ships have used the illegal harbors for security reasons since the civil war broke out in 1975. The practice has stripped the state treasury of taxes and customs duties.
Iraq took delivery earlier this month of its first eight Frenchbuilt F-1 Mirage fighters equipped with Exocet missiles, increasing its ability to attack Persian Gulf shipping, Western and Muslim military experts in Baghdad reported. The Mirages will replace older French Super-Etendard jets now operated by Iraq in its war with Iran.
President Hussain Ershad today postponed indefinitely parliamentary elections that had been scheduled for December. An opposition leader, Begum Khaleda Zia, head of the Bangladesh National Party, said of the postponement, “This act may lead the nation to uncertainties and civil war.” A terse annnouncement by the military Government of Bangladesh said: “In consideration of the prevailing situation in the country, the chief martial law administrator has been pleased to direct the postponement of the election to the Parliament until further order.” The postponement order was the second this year. The elections originally were to be held May 27, but were deferred under opposition pressure. The announcement came as opposition parties began a series of meetings, rallies and demonstrations to press for an end to martial law and the formation of a caretaker government to conduct the elections. None of the political parties had selected candidates for the elections even though November 1 was the date fixed for submission of nominations.
Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, responding to a comment by President Reagan last week, said there was no chance his government would fall to a Communist insurgency, or, for that matter, to the moderate opposition. Last Sunday, during a debate between President Reagan and Walter F. Mondale, Mr. Reagan said he thought the alternative to the Government of Mr. Marcos was a Communist takeover. Marcos, reacting sharply to statements by the Reagan Administration, said his government would not be “overthrown either by the bullet or the ballot,” or play the “pet dog” of any Western power. President Reagan in last Sunday’s debate acknowledged concern over Marcos’ restriction of democratic rights, and said the only alternative is a Communist takeover. Marcos in a speech to army reservists dismissed as “imagination” the idea that Communist insurgents are a serious threat. And rebuffing U.S. praise on the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. assassination inquiry, Marcos said it was done not to satisfy Washington, but Philippine law.
Although patrol boats from both nations were on hand to settle any disputes, the new boundary line separating United States and Canadian fishing grounds in the Gulf of Maine took effect this weekend without reported incident. The new division was the result of a World Court ruling that settled a long-standing disagreement over territorial fishing rights for the bountiful Georges Bank. The court’s decision that gave to Canadian fishermen waters that New Englanders had fished for more than 200 years became official Friday. A United States Coast Guard cutter and three Canadian Coast Guard boats patroled the area. There have been no incidents in the two weeks since the court ruling. “There wasn’t any expectation of trouble,” a spokesman for the Coast Guard district headquarters in Boston said. “It’s like setting a new speed limit. You have to be on hand to enforce it.”
The number of strike-related layoffs at a Canadian plant of Mack Truck Inc. rose today to 446 as the contract dispute between the United Automobile Workers and the heavy truck company entered its seventh day. Contract negotiations continued into the night, however. William McCullough, vice president for corporate relations, said Friday that 30 workers would join 416 already on furlough at the assembly plant at Oakville, Ontario. He said the layoffs were necessary because of reductions in the flow of parts from the assembly plants in the United States. About 9,200 workers at four United States plants struck Sunday after negotiators failed to agree on a new contract. Of the contract talks, Mr. McCullough said, shortly after 9 PM, “All I know is that they’re still meeting, but it’s a an optimistic sign that they’re meeting so late.”
At least 15 people were killed and 45 were wounded Friday in a gun and machete fight between truck drivers and peasants who blocked a highway in eastern Bolivia, Interior Minister Federico Alvarez Plata said today. Army troops and policemen were dispatched early today to the road linking the cities of Santa Cruz and Trinidad, about 240 miles east of here, to restore order after the clash, Mr. Alvarez Plata said. He said the battle started when truck drivers tried to break through a roadblock set up by peasants demanding government action to improve local conditions.
Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, said the Reagan Administration had made the white-dominated Government of South Africa “more intransigent” in its policies of racial separation. The Bishop said the Administration had done so by soft-pedaling any criticism of South Africa’s policy of apartheid. From the standpoint of South Africa’s more than 23 million blacks, Indians and people of mixed race, he said, the re-election of President Reagan would be “disastrous.” “We judge every institution, every government, on the basis of whether they advance or deter our liberation struggle,” Bishop Tutu said in an interview in New York, where he is on a six- month teaching assignment.
France performs a nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll.
A tougher policy toward terrorists that Secretary of State George P. Shultz advocated this week seems to be gaining support in the Administration despite continuing disputes, according to White House and State Department officials. They said the new policy could include the swift use of military force, even if it resulted in some civilian deaths. But the officials acknowledged that there was no certainty so far that the United States in specific incidents would be ready to take the pre-emptive or retaliatory strikes called for by Mr. Shultz in a speech on terrorism in New York on Thursday. There was embarrassment within the Government to the publicity given, with less than two weeks to go in the campaign, to the seeming contradictions among senior officials over how to deal with terrorism.
Walter F. Mondale campaigned in California in an effort to erase President Reagan’s lead in his home state. In the struggle for electoral votes in what both campaigns consider crucial Sun Belt states, the Mondale campaign is matching the Reagan campaign dollar for dollar in a furious television advertising competition and Mr. Mondale plans to fly in for a rally on the final day of the general election campaign.
Mondale accused President Reagan today of making a “despicable” charge that the Democratic leadership lacked the “moral courage” to condemn anti- Semitism. At the same time Mr. Mondale brushed aside new polls that show him substantially behind Mr. Reagan in the Presidential contest. “There’s something going on in this country and the pollsters aren’t getting it,” Mr. Mondale said at an outdoor news conference near San Francisco Bay.
[Ed: Yeah, there is something going on, Fritz: A Republican landslide.]
Failure to attract independents is blocking Walter F. Mondale’s efforts to overtake President Reagan in the final days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.
The President and First Lady are at Camp David for the weekend to enjoy the summer-like weather. Reagan makes his usual Saturday radio address. President Reagan appealed today for the votes of the nation’s young people, declaring that a victory for Walter F. Mondale could “send many of you from the graduation line to the unemployment line.” The phrase, like much of Mr. Reagan’s paid political address, echoed his standard stump speech. “I just have to say your generation really sparkles,” Mr. Reagan said. “In my travels I’ve met you by the thousands and I’ve seen enthusiasm and patriotism in your eyes that convince me that you get high on America.”
The number of serious crimes reported to the police in the first half of this year was 5 percent below the figure for the first six months of 1983, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said today. Attorney General William French Smith, in a statement accompanying the report, said the half-year drop followed the first two consecutive year- long declines since 1960. In 1983 serious reported crime dropped 7 percent from the year before, and in 1982 reported crime was 3.3 percent below the 1981 figure. In 1981 there was no statistically significant change from the previous year. In the first half of 1984 violent crimes declined 2 percent while property crimes were down 5 percent, the bureau said. The report is based on figures from some 16,000 law-enforcement agencies.
A baboon’s heart was implanted in a 15-day-old girl in a five-hour operation yesterday in what doctors called a bold surgical effort that could have a wide impact on the treatment of people with failing hearts. The baby girl was reported to be “doing fine” though still in critical condition in the intensive care unit of Loma Linda University Medical Center near San Bernardino, California.
Rep. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tennessee) said a House subcommittee will investigate alleged harassment of a Department of Energy security specialist who blew the whistle on lax security at nuclear weapons plants. Gore said he will chair a hearing to look into a reported plot to discredit security specialist John Hnatio, 33, and to eventually fire him. Gore, at a news conference in Nashville, released a 1983 memorandum outlining plans by Robert O’Brien Jr., DOE director of safeguards and security, to discredit Hnatio and dismiss him. The investigation was ordered by Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Michigan), chairman of the energy and commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations, who said Hnatio was “hounded” by superiors because he testified before Dingell’s panel last February. Retribution against federal employees who give truthful testimony is a felony.
An Environmental Protection Agency scientist says in a study that between 500 and 5,000 nonsmoking Americans could die of lung cancer each year from inhaling cigarette smoke, CBS reported. The network said that the federal government does not regulate smoking even though it controls other substances that will kill far fewer persons. CBS said that about 340,000 Americans die prematurely each year because of cigarette smoking and that 46 states and the District of Columbia have laws restricting cigarette smoking in public places.
The Federal authorities have begun a “nationwide manhunt” for Carmine Persico, who was indicted Wednesday as the head of the Colombo crime organization in New York City. The indictment, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, named 11 defendants on extensive racketeering charges. But the authorities were unable to find four of the defendants, including Mr. Persico. United States Attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani said on Friday that he believed Mr. Persico had fled because an article about the case was leaked to The New York Post a week before the indictment. He said the Justice Department was investigating the disclosure because “it was leaked by somebody in the Government.”
Parts from the engine of a United Airlines jetliner fell on the Chicago residential areas of Wood Dale and Hillcrest shortly after the plane, carrying 276 persons, took off from O’Hare International Airport. No injuries were reported. The crew of the Honolulu-bound DC-10 was forced to dump 109,000 pounds or about 15,500 gallons of fuel to lighten the load before landing safely back at O’Hare, about 30 minutes later.
A federal judge in Minneapolis granted preliminary approval to a $1.2-million settlement in a class-action job discrimination suit against Cargill Inc. The suit was initiated by one current and three former employees and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. All of the individual plaintiffs are black, including two women. Under the settlement, Cargill will pay $200,000, to be divided among the four persons who acted as class representatives in the case. Cargill, an agricultural products firm, also will establish a fund of $1 million to satisfy the claims of black and female former employees who allege they were fired because of discrimination.
The Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church meeting in Chicago has upheld a ban on ordaining admitted, practicing homosexuals as ministers, labeling homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching. The council, in unanimously upholding the ban as of January 1, 1985, said, however, that a bishop cannot refuse an appointment to a parish or to other duties of an already ordained homosexual minister unless that individual has been suspended or removed from membership.
A brawl erupted today among about 70 Hispanic, Indian and black inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution west of Denver, Colorado, injuring 11 prisoners, one of them seriously, a spokesman said. The fight broke out about 11:15 AM in an open area near several dormitory rooms at the prison, and spilled back into some of the rooms, said Art Espinoza, an assistant to the warden. Mr. Espinoza said an investigation started immediately after the brawl showed it possibly was “racially motivated,” and involved “Hispanic and Indian inmates, and the black inmates.”
Houston residents worked to clean up about 800 homes flooded by 15 inches of rain — the city’s third heaviest rainfall on record and emergency services were made available for the estimated 2,500 persons affected by the high water. “All the bayous have stabilized,” said Markett Ryza of the Harris County Flood Control District. “Some aren’t going down very much, but at least they’re not rising.” Authorities found the body of a woman whose car plunged into the high water of Braes Bayou. Hundreds of cars stalled on freeways and roads, and for a time. Houston Intercontinental Airport was virtually cut off from the rest of the city when water closed all but one of its access roads.
A tentative agreement on a new contract was reached between bargainers for General Motors of Canada and the United Automobile Workers after 31 hours of continuous bargaining. The accord came after a 10-day strike by 36,000 Canadian workers.
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has reported a net operating loss of $1,878,000 in the past fiscal year, the first deficit since its first season in 1971-72. Roger L. Stevens, the center’s chairman, attributed the problem to rising production and operating costs and a decline in the number of quality shows available. The nonprofit center gets no Federal assistance for its productions. “For the past three years, the center’s always precarious financial situation has worsened despite a successful drive to steadily increase private support,” Mr. Stevens said in a statement Friday. “Aggravating the situation has been understandable consumer resistance to higher ticket prices.”
“Jessie’s Girl” singer Rick Springfield (35) weds Barbara Porter in Australia.
A quarter-century after they abandoned Manhattan and the Polo Grounds, the baseball Giants may be destined to move out of San Francisco. The problem is Candlestick Park, whose high winds, summer fogs and notoriously chilly nights are among reasons for low attendance. “I’ve had it,” said Robert Lurie, who announced early this month that the team is for sale. “I’m paranoid about the ball park.” Mr. Lurie bought the Giants in March 1976, and has lost $10 million to $15 million since then, according to knowledgeable estimates. Mayor Dianne Feinstein has suggested several times that the city build a new stadium downtown, but none of her proposals survived for more than a few weeks. The problem is money, and the Mayor refuses to tap the public treasury.
Washington State University’s running back Rueben Mayes sets collegiate football record of 357 yards rushing in one game (at Oregon).
Born:
Kelly Osbourne, English television personality (The Osbournes), in Westminster, London, England, United Kingdom.
Will Blackmon, NFL cornerback and safety (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 46-Giants, 2011; Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, Jacksonville Jaguars, Washington Redskins), in Providence, Rhode Island.
Brady Quinn, NFL quarterback (Cleveland Browns, Kansas City Chiefs) and broadcaster (CBS Sports HQ, Fox Sports), in Columbus, Ohio.
History Diaries 