President Reagan meets with Secretary Schultz in preparation for the upcoming arms reduction talks with the Soviets.
President Reagan will confer with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the Camp David retreat in Maryland on December 22. Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said Mrs. Thatcher would pass through the United States after visits to Peking and Hong Kong. He said the agenda would include East-West relations, Mr. Reagan’s hopes for talks with the Soviet Union, prospects for renewed arms control talks and the economic summit meeting to be held in Bonn in May.
Newspaper coverage of military operations should be allowed to the maximum extent possible, according to a tentative agreement reached by the Pentagon and two leading newspaper associations. The accord is subject to approval by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.
General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish leader, said today that the killing of a pro-Solidarity priest was against the ethics and interests of the government and “has done a lot of harm to us.” In an unusual news conference, he also said sanctions imposed by the United States had harmed Poland’s economy and had led to closer ties with the Soviet-bloc allies. Mr. Jaruzelski, 61 years old, faced about 150 foreign journalists in the ornate Palace of the Council of Ministers. It was the first time he had met with Western reporters since he came to power in February 1981. “Objectively, this crime has done a lot of harm to us,” he said of the killing last month of the Rev. Jerzy Popiełuszko. Three security police officers are charged with kidnapping and killing the 37-year-old priest, and a fourth is accused of assisting them.
The Italian police are searching for another suspect in a reported plot to bomb the United States Embassy in Rome. The suspect, who has not been identified, is believed to have been traveling with a man whose arrest in Switzerland 10 days ago led to the uncovering of the purported plot. The Italian police are also seeking to discover whether a man arrested in August was connected with the case. The man, identified only as an Arab, was carrying 15 pounds of explosives at the time of his arrest.
Konstantin U. Chernenko has asked Armand Hammer, the American industrialist, to go to Moscow for a discussion of Soviet-American relations, Administration officials said today. The officials said they expected Mr. Chernenko to use the meeting to prepare the way for scheduled talks between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko in Geneva on January 7 and 8. Mr. Hammer, whose dealings with Soviet leaders go back to Lenin’s times, is chairman of Occidental Petroleum. He was used by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 for a mission to meet with Nikita S. Khrushchev. The industrialist was also close to Leonid I. Brezhnev, who gave Mr. Hammer a Moscow apartment for his use.
Soviet champion Anatoly Karpov and challenger Gary Kasparov played to a 25-move draw in the 28th game of the world chess championship that began September 9. Karpov, leading the series 5–0, needs only one more victory to retain the title, which he has held since 1975. In the 29th game in Moscow on Friday, Karpov will play with the white pieces, which allows him to move first and take the initiative.
Cheering supporters carried Yasser Arafat on their shoulders to the rostrum at the Palestine National Council meeting today where he retracted a day-old offer to resign as chairman. “I hereby bow to you,” Mr. Arafat told the highest policy-making body of the Palestine Liberation Organization. “It is only you, representatives of the Palestinian people, who decide whether or not to remove me. It is your right to tell me go or stay.” Thunderous applause and shouts of “We have no leader but you!” filled the Royal Cultural Center Hall, where the council is meeting.
Lebanon’s Cabinet unanimously endorsed plans for the army to take control of a coastal highway to prove to Israel that the government is capable of maintaining security in southern Lebanon Premier Rashid Karami said he expects soldiers to take over Sunday from Christian and Muslim militiamen along the coastal highway running from Syrian positions in the north to Israeli lines at the Awwali River in the south.
President François Mitterrand of France said today that he welcomed Syria’s efforts to end the conflict in Lebanon. “Syria is not only a country of the Middle East, it is a part of the Arab nation, as is Lebanon,” he said. “To the extent that Syria can contribute and does contribute to ending the civil war, who can object?” Mr. Mitterrand spoke at a joint news conference with President Hafez al-Assad at the end of a three-day visit that, the French leader said, led to improved French-Syrian relations.
Morocco and its Polisario guerrilla foes reported fierce fighting in the Western Sahara. A government communique said 114 guerrillas were slain and eight of their Soviet-made T-55 tanks destroyed while 14 Moroccans were reported killed. The guerrillas said they killed 72 Moroccan soldiers and wounded 140. The rebels struck at Moroccan defenses in Haouza, the outpost behind Moroccan defense lines that the Polisario has described as the “provisional capital” of its Saharan Arab Democratic Republic.
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi said that all Libyan troops have left Chad and charged that France has sent troops back to that country, in violation of a summit agreement. In an ABC-TV interview, Qaddafi said that he heard that “three hundred of French soldiers came back to (Chad).” Libyan troops invaded Chad in support of Chadian rebels, and French forces were sent to head off the invaders. After France withdrew under the agreement, President Francois Mitterrand was embarrassed when U.S. satellite photos showed that all the Libyans had not left.
The Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, said today that “the final solution of the problem of the Middle East” would be to replace Israel with a Palestinian state. The comment prompted Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli representative, to complain that on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the drafting of the United Nations Charter, “and 40 years after the Holocaust, the Iranian delegate proposes the eradication of a member state as a ‘final solution’ and no one in this hall bats an eyelash.” Mr. Netanyahu had proposed that the lengthy debate on the “situation in the Middle East” be broadened to include disputes between Arab nations as well as the Arab-Israeli conflict. “But they say this is all in the family, all in the Arab household and should not be scrutinized by the world.”
As the first phase of India’s national election draws to a close and the campaign is about to begin in earnest, it has become apparent that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has made no sweeping changes in the character of his Congress-I Party ticket. Many politicians, political scientists and political commentators had believed – or at least hoped – that Mr. Gandhi would make wholesale alterations in the list of Congress-I candidates in order to purge the party of some unsavory elements and bring in new blood. Indian politics generally has in recent years attracted a number of what are widely seen as corrupt, unscrupulous and even criminal practitioners. But as the deadline for candidates to file their nomination papers for the December 24-28 election passed on Tuesday, it appeared that no large-scale change had taken place, though a number of the most notorious figures were denied spots on the ticket.
Sir Robert Muldoon, who was New Zealand’s Prime Minister for nine years until he was swept from power in an election last July, was ousted today as leader of the National Party. Sir Robert, 63 years old, whose autocratic style was blamed for a landslide Labor Party victory, was defeated in a vote by his parliamentary colleagues. He will be succeeded by Jim McLay, 39, a former lawyer and Muldoon protege, who was appointed deputy leader early this year before Sir Robert called an election July 14. Former Labor Minister Jim Bolger, 49, was elected Mr. McLay’s deputy. Sir Robert, who had put himself forward as one of the candidates in the leadership ballot, said he would continue as a member of Parliament.
United States military forces will not be drawn gradually into combat in Central America, according to Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger. But, he said, if forces are committed anywhere, it must be with the clear intention of victory. Pentagon officials said Mr. Weinberger wanted to assert that any use of military force would not be indiscriminate and that the Reagan Administration intended to avoid being dragged into a quagmire in Central America. Mr. Weinberger, in an address at a National Press Club luncheon meeting, also suggested that Congressional restraints on presidential applications of military force should be modified. Pentagon officials said later he referred to the War Powers Act.
Salvadoran Government and rebel officials will meet at a Roman Catholic Church retreat near the capital of San Salvador for a second round of peace talks on Friday, church and rebel spokesmen said today. The meeting will take place in Government-controlled territory at the Sacred Heart Retreat of Ayagualo, 10 miles south of the capital, according to Auxiliary Archbishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez. He said the meeting would start at either 7 or 8 A.M. and last until 3 or 4 P.M. When the Government and the rebels first met last month in La Palma near the border with Honduras the town was temporarily declared a demilitarized zone. This time, however, Government troops will guard the area around the church retreat while officials of the International Red Cross keep watch on the inner grounds, Archbishop Rosa Chavez said.
Nicaragua’s vice president-elect, Sergio Ramirez, has been given an American visa and will make a speaking tour of nine U.S. cities next month, the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington reported. Los Angeles and San Francisco are among the cities, a spokesman said. Meanwhile, in Managua, the Nicaraguan army withdrew a number of Soviet-made tanks from the streets of the capital, the first sign of an easing of the state of alert called after the United States disclosed suspicions that MIG jet fighters were aboard a freighter that docked in Nicaragua.
Six more Soviet ships are on the way to Nicaragua with more arms, according to the White House. It accused Moscow of aiding an effort by the Sandinistas to “intimidate their Central American neighbors and undermine” peace efforts. “We don’t make the assumption yet that they are MIG’s,” Larry Speakes, President Reagan’s spokesman, said of the arms aboard the ships. Three weeks ago, officials raised an alarm that a Soviet ship headed for Nicaragua might be carrying MIG planes. Later the officials said the ship had unloaded military equipment, but not MIG’s.
A Honduran delegation met today with Secretary of State Shultz to press for more economic and military aid. The Honduran delegation is led by Ubodoro Arriaga, Minister of the Presidency, and includes Colonel Efrain Gonzalez Munoz, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Manuel Fontecha, Minister of Finance. According to United States officials, Honduras believes that the $200 million a year it receives is insufficient in light of its poverty and of its strategic proximity to Nicaragua. There have been incidents along the border, partly because Nicaraguan rebels have been using Honduras as a base of operations.
Peruvian President Fernando Belaunde Terry decreed a 30-day state of emergency and suspended civil rights on the eve of a nationwide general strike called by the leftist General Workers Confederation to protest the nation’s severe economic crisis. The decree allows police to make arrests and search homes without warrants and outlaws public and private meetings. The confederation is demanding wage increases and a suspension of payments on the nation’s $13-billion foreign debt to help the ailing economy.
The police fired tear gas today to halt marchers near the presidential palace on the first day of a nationwide strike in Bolivia. The indefinite walkout appeared to have strong support among the nation’s 2.5 million workers. About 3,000 people rallied peacefully in front of an 18th century Roman Catholic church in La Paz. The police did not intervene until several hundred people tried to march to a square in front of the presidential palace. Then the police fired tear gas grenades and the demonstrators dispersed.
A scheduled day of national protest in Chile fell flat in the face of a massive show of force by the military government of President Augusto Pinochet. Riot police arrested dozens of student demonstrators at the University of Santiago, but most were released within a few hours. Schools, businesses and retail shops functioned normally, and a government spokesman applauded what he called good public cooperation with security forces.
Hunger threatens 35 million Africans as drought has spread in large areas of the continent over the last three years. Well-intentioned relief agencies are being criticized by African Governments that point out that saving people from famine without finding a key to increasing food production puts too much pressure on fragile land. The land dies, they say, while dependency on outsiders increases.
Bob Dole was elected Senate majority leader. Senate Republicans chose Mr. Dole, of Kansas, over Ted Stevens of Alaska by three votes in the final round of a hard-fought contest among five aspirants. Mr. Dole’s election set off a chain reaction that put moderates in several key party leadership posts. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina announced he would definitely not assume the chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee, opening the way for Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana to head the panel.
Bob Dole pledged strong leadership as the Senate majority leader, more than willing to impose discipline on that untidy body. The Senator from Kansas is a witty, “can do” lawmaker who has mellowed considerably in recent years.
The President and First Lady attend the Senate Republican Unity Dinner where Senator Dole (R-Kansas) is made the new Majority Leader.
Maureen Reagan, the President’s eldest daughter, said today that her brother Michael Reagan was conducting a “vendetta” against Nancy Reagan that had left the President and his wife “just agonized.” “He thinks he can keep dumping on us,” she said. “Now we’re fighting back.” In an interview, Miss Reagan, who is 43 years old, said that Michael Reagan, 38, “is not the victim” of the family controversy that erupted into public view last week and added, “He’s been estranged from all of us.” “I think the President will do everything in his power to get us together,” she said, but noted at another point, “He certainly does not want someone to declare war on his wife.”
William D. Ruckelshaus is resigning, effective January 5, as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, a position he assumed in the spring of 1983 when the agency was in deep crisis. The resignation is effective Jan. 5. Alvin L. Alm, Deputy Administrator of the agency, said tonight that he also had submitted his resignation and would leave at the same time as Mr. Ruckelshaus. In a letter to President Reagan, Mr. Ruckelshaus said, “The ship called E.P.A. is righted and is now steering a steady course.”
Three black leaders were arrested at the South African Embassy in Washington as protests continued against the racial policies of that nation’s white rulers. Two of those arrested — Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley) and Mark Stepp, vice president of the United Auto Workers union, were held overnight. The third black leader, District of Columbia Councilwoman Hilda Mason, was released on her own recognizance. The three were taken into custody when they refused to leave the front steps of the building after being denied a meeting with Ambassador Bernardus Fourie. They were charged with a misdemeanor for failing to remain at least 500 feet away from the embassy grounds.
President Reagan plans to meet with retiring U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick to discuss a possible future role in the Administration, but says there is no White House vacancy “worthy” of her. At the same time, in an interview with the Washington Times, Reagan said he was not sure what Kirkpatrick’s desires are and “how strongly she wants to leave government.” White House spokesman Larry Speakes confirmed a report that Reagan had pleaded with Kirkpatrick to stay in the United Nations post. In a separate interview with the Washington Times, Kirkpatrick expressed her ire over having “White House aides, behind a cloak of anonymity, saying things about me behind my back that were not true. That’s not nice,” she said.
A correspondent for TIME magazine told the jury in a libel trial that four sources had told him that Ariel Sharon knew there would be a Phalangist massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and did nothing to prevent it. The reporter testified in New York that he learned former Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon had indicated to Lebanon’s Phalangist leaders the need for “retaliation” for the murder of their leader. The day after that meeting, Phalangist militiamen slaughtered an estimated 700 Palestinians in two West Beirut refugee camps, said David Halevy, Time’s Jerusalem correspondent. Halevy, who was called as a hostile witness by Sharon’s lawyer, wrote the article that prompted Sharon’s $50-million libel suit against the magazine.
To his friends and neighbors in the luxury apartment building on the Upper East Side, Karl F. Koecher was a militant anti-Communist refugee from Czechoslovakia, a sharp-tempered debater who vigorously supported conservative causes. His wife, Hana, was less outspoken, but at dinner and at cocktail parties, she was a staunch supporter of her husband’s anti-Soviet stands. Yesterday, in a courtroom at the United States Court House on Foley Square, Mr. Koecher was formally charged with infiltrating the Central Intelligence Agency as a spy for the Czechoslovak intelligence service and turning over classified C.I.A. information to the Czechoslovaks. Mrs. Koecher, who was arrested with her husband on Tuesday, just hours before they were to fly to Europe, is being held as a material witness. According to an affidavit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, she was an espionage courier for her husband.
William J. Schroeder swallowed fruit juices, hot wheat cereal and a milkshake today, but he still craved for a beer as his doctors said he was growing stronger and his body was continuing to make a natural adjustment to his mechanical heart. Today Mr. Schroeder joked with nurses, instructed them on how to make “the perfect glass of lemonade,” and told them they were doing a superb job of caring for him as he sat up and dangled his legs at the side of his bed. The 52-year-old patient, the second recipient of a permanent artificial heart, also rested much of the day in the coronary care unit at the Humana Hospital- Audubon. Mr. Schroeder’s condition remained critical, meaning it could change suddenly at any time, but the patient was making excellent progress.
A man condemned to die in Florida’s electric chair for the 1976 slayings of two police officers won an indefinite stay from a federal appeals court on the eve of his scheduled execution. Jessie Tafero, 38, was granted the stay by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which ruled that it needed more time to consider issues raised in his case. Five hours earlier, Federal District Judge Lenore C. Nesbitt granted him a one-day reprieve, rejecting his appeal but allowing his attorneys more time to appeal to the appeals court. Since his death warrant expires at noon Friday, it is likely that he will not die in the electric chair this week. He could only be executed if the court ruled before the death warrant expires. Mr. Tafero was condemned for the January 1976 killings of Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Phillip Black and a vacationing constable, Donald Irwin of Kitchener, Ontario. The law officers were killed after stopping a car on Interstate 95 in Broward County.
A man who pleaded guilty to sex charges and agreed to testify against 24 other people charged with sexually abusing children now says he was lying when he implicated the others, according to a broadcast report. James John Rud, 27 years old, of Jordan, Minnesota, said in a telephone interview broadcast by WTCN-TV Tuesday that he had given false statements to investigators in the hope of receiving a lighter prison sentence. “I’m relieved the truth has finally come out,” Mr. Rud said in a telephone interview from the Scott County Jail. Mr. Rud was charged with 108 counts of criminal sexual conduct. He pleaded guilty in August to 10 counts in a plea bargain with the Scott County Attorney, Kathleen Morris, that provided for him to testify against others. Miss Morris’s office had charged 25 people in the alleged abuse of dozens of children. Miss Morris later dropped all charges against the remaining 24 defendants. She turned the case over to the Minnesota Attorney General, Hubert H. Humphrey 3d, who ordered an investigation into allegations of child murders and child pornograhy in Scott County, southwest of Minneapolis. The murder investigation has been dropped, but the investigation into alleged child sexual abuse continues.
Two-day-old Siamese twin girls who shared a breastbone, diaphragm, liver and small intestine were in critical but stable condition in Galveston, Texas, after 18 hours of surgery to separate them, but they “have everything they need to do well,” their doctor said. The girls, identified only as Ashley and Alma, were being fed intravenously and receiving medication to relieve any discomfort, said Dr. Thom Lobe.
Bernard Kalb, a widely traveled foreign correspondent for television and newspapers who covered the State Department for the last eight years, was named today as the department’s next spokesman. According to a statement by Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Mr. Kalb will have the title of Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. He will replace John Hughes, who has resigned effective January 1 to return to Cape Cod, where he is the owner of two newspapers. This is the first time that a journalist who covered the State Department has been named as its spokesman. Mr. Kalb, 62 years old, worked there first for CBS News and after 1980 for NBC News. He was recently made culture and arts correspondent for NBC News.
Immigration officials said today that they were working to bring back to the United States a pregnant Filipino deported to Manila 12 days ago, and the woman’s husband hopes to have her home by Christmas. Eleanore Parnes, 29 years old, was put on a plane for the Philippines by agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service on November 17. The officials said Mrs. Parnes had lived in Los Angeles illegally since she left her job as a housekeeper to the Philippine consul general in 1974. But Hiram Kwan, Mrs. Parnes’s attorney, said her marriage to an American citizen this year made her eligible for legal residence. Mr. Kwan filed a new visa petition today to allow Mrs. Parnes to re-enter the United States. Orville Charles, assistant district director for the immigration service in Los Angeles, said it should “just be a matter of weeks” before Mrs. Parnes returned. Mr. Parnes, 31, said his wife is expecting a baby in late March.
Bathhouses catering to male homosexuals, closed last month in an attempt to control the spread of AIDS, may reopen under strict limitations on sexual behavior, a Superior Court judge ruled today. Judge Roy L. Wonder lifted the October 15 temporary restraining order that closed the bathhouses. But he said bathhouse operators must hire employees to monitor sexual activity and eject patrons who engage in “high risk sexual activity” as defined by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
“A nonaddictive drug” that blocks an addict’s craving for heroin was approved by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Lynn Ansara, a New York State drug official, said the approved drug, naltrexone, could not be used by the 60 percent of heroin addicts who have liver damage. Also, the drug’s effectiveness depends to a great extent on the motivation of the people who use it.
Several longtime drug traffickers, testifying before a Presidential panel, described how easy it is to smuggle marijuana, cocaine and other narcotics into the United States.
Mennonite farmers, meeting in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, formed a national organization to help each other in hard times for farmers. The organization is to provide counseling, moral support and, in some cases, financial aid.
Over 250 years after their deaths, William Penn and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn are made Honorary Citizens of the United States.
The coming winter is likely to resemble those of a half-century ago, with relatively mild weather in the East and cold weather in the Western mountains, according to the National Weather Service.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1205.39 (-14.8)
Born:
Marc-André Fleury, Canadian NHL goaltender, (NHL Champions, Stanley Cup-Penguins, 2009, 2016, 2017; All-Star, 2011, 2015, 2018, 2019; Pittsburgh Penguins, Vegas Golden Knights, Chicago Blackhawks, Minnesota Wild), in Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, Canada.
Andrew Bogut, Australian NBA center and power forward (NBA Championship-Warriors, 2015; 2005 NBA Draft #1 pick; Milwaukee Bucks, Golden State Warriors, Dallas Mavericks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers), in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Brad Cottam, NFL tight end (Kansas City Chiefs), in Germantown, Tennessee.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, American actress (“Final Destination 3”), in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
Trey Songz [Tremaine Neverson], American singer, rapper and songwriter (Passion, Pain & Pleasure), in Petersburg, Virginia.
Died:
Hans Speidel, 87, German army officer (WWI, WWII), involved in the 20 July Plot to kill Adolf Hitler (1944), and NATO-supreme commander (1957-64).
Ricky Bell, 29, American College Football HOF and NFL running back (USC; #1 Overall Selection 1977 NFL Draft; Tampa Bay Buccaneers; San Diego Chargers), of heart failure caused by dermatomyositis.
History Diaries 