The U.S. must be ready to use arms even when it has no guarantee of public support, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said. In a speech at a Yeshiva University convocation in New York, he said such readiness to use military force was “the burden of statesmanship.” In a speech at a Yeshiva University convocation at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Mr. Shultz continued a public debate with Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger over the proper use of American force. The dispute dates from their disagreement over the deployment of the Marines in Lebanon, with Mr. Weinberger much more hesitant and wary about the use of force than Mr. Shultz. Honorary Degrees Awarded Mr. Shultz and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel were awarded honorary degrees by Yeshiva at the convocation.
A former Solidarity union official — released from a Polish prison and given a hero’s welcome by thousands of supporters in a church in the Baltic port of Gdansk — pledged to fight for the revival of the independent trade union movement. “The struggle for the revival of Solidarity is not over,” Bogdan Lis said as people held up their hands in V-for-victory signs, a frequent gesture used by supporters of Solidarity, which was outlawed in 1982 under martial law. Lis was freed in an amnesty after having been held six months on charges of high treason. “I have a lot to catch up on,” he said. “I will be making efforts to see people with whom I have been out of contact for six months.” Members of Mr. Lis’s family and the Rev. Henryk Jankowski, religious adviser to Solidarity’s founder, Lech Walesa, celebrated his release in a service at St. Brigid’s Church.
An explosion at the Paris headquarters of the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic caused considerable damage but no injuries. Police said a bomb damaged half a dozen cars in the vicinity, blew out windows of nearby buildings and badly damaged a room in the party’s offices. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but the party’s secretary general, Jacques Toubon, said it was “part of the general climate of insecurity …in our country.”
The Soviet Union, which has been testing its own version of the space shuttle, also has been working on a smaller “space plane” that can be launched quickly on intercontinental flights, U.S. specialists said at the Space Center in Houston. The specialists said the Soviet craft may be similar to one the U.S. Air Force wants to build, called the Trans-Atmospheric Vehicle. This plane would be carried into space by a larger craft, then launched. The plane would be designed to make intercontinental flights at such high altitudes and speeds that it would be virtually unstoppable by air defenses.
Great Britain performs a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site. The United States and Britain detonated a high-yield nuclear device today in an underground test beneath the desert at the Nevada test site. In Washington Peter West, a spokesman for the British Embassy, declined to discuss details of the test, other than to say it was to “maintain the effectiveness of the United Kingdom’s nuclear capability.” The test reportedly had an explosive force equivalent to that of 20,000 to 150,000 tons of TNT, placing it in the highest range of tests conducted at the Nevada site.
Israeli leaders told a visiting U.S. diplomat that Lebanon is blocking progress in talks on a troop withdrawal from the south and that their patience is running out, an official reported. Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin made the point in talks with Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy, who arrived in Jerusalem over the weekend. A broadcast quoted officials as saying that Israel “will re-site its remaining troops in south Lebanon according to its own security needs in two weeks unless progress on an overall settlement is made with Lebanon.”
An Iraqi warplane fired an Exocet missile into a Bahamian-registered oil tanker in the Persian Gulf today, Iraq and marine salvage executives said. No casualties were reported. An Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad announced the raid on the 163,155-ton tanker, the B. T. Investor, which occurred south of the Iranian oil terminal at Kharg Island.
Iranian security men freed the last nine hostages in a hijacked Kuwaiti airliner at the Tehran airport, and the four Arabic-speaking hijackers surrendered, the Iran press agency reported. The hostages were two Americans, the British pilot and four Arabs, and two Kuwaiti men, who previously were reported to have been killed, the press agency said. The hijackers had planted explosives near the fuel tanks and appeared ready to blow up the plane, destroying themselves and their hostages, according to a group of seven passengers freed about three hours earlier.
Bhopal “became a big gas chamber” the night that a lethal gas escaped from a Union Carbide insecticide plant, one of the survivors of the biggest chemical accident in history said. In contributing to a reconstruction of that night, a police official in the Indian city, said anyone who was left alive ran away blindly. “Mothers didn’t know their children had died. Children didn’t know their mothers had died. Men didn’t know their whole families had died.” It began without warning in the dead of night, while the vast and crowded slums of Bhopal, India, lay in slumber, dreaming the troubled dreams of want and hope, heedless of the danger in the wind scything over the silent metropolis. The wind was brisk that night. As it rolled in from the northwest, out of India’s central plains and across Bhopal, a city of 900,000 people 360 miles south of New Delhi, it picked up a cloud of toxic gas leaking from a storage tank at a Union Carbide plant. In minutes, the gas, methyl isocyanate, began drifting through the nearest of the shantytowns. Within an hour, it had engulfed the dwellings of tens of thousands of people, and the terrible deaths and the living agonies of the worst industrial disaster in history had begun.
Union Carbide announced in India that it was rushing in medical supplies, doctors and specialists to treat the survivors of the leak at its plant in Bhopal. It also announced that it would contribute $830,000 to a special fund for the survivors and would soon set up an orphanage.
A policeman charged with conspiring to kill Indira Gandhi has confessed that he first had planned to slay her with poison gas or a bomb, the United News of India reported. Balbir Singh, a Sikh who was arrested last week, was quoted by the agency as saying that he toyed with the idea of ramming Gandhi’s car with a bomb-laden auto or of placing a poison gas container near her bedroom. The news agency also said investigators have failed to find any evidence directly implicating a Norwegian-based former Indian diplomat, I. Harinder Singh, in the conspiracy. He was accused by two Indian newspapers last month of financing the assassination.
A special United States envoy, General Vernon Walters, arrived in Sri Lanka today, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Officials said the government would brief him on the security situation in the north, where at least 370 people have died in the last three weeks. On Saturday the government imposed a weekend curfew on the north. The government radio reported today that some 200 guerrilla suspects were rounded up Saturday in the north, where rebels are fighting for a separate state for Sri Lanka’s 2.6 million Tamils. General Walters is scheduled to meet with President J. R. Jayewardene and National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali on Monday, officials said.
The Bangladesh Supreme Court Bar Association announced today that it had extended its “support and solidarity” to a national strike on December 22 and 23 called by major opposition parties to force President H. M. Ershad to restore democracy. Two opposition alliances called for the strike after a 24-hour work stoppage Saturday in which 30 people, including four policemen and six press photographers, were hurt. The lawyers criticized what they described as a “brutal attack by the police on the working journalists during the peaceful observance of” the strike.
China is demilitarizing its coast opposite the Nationalist-held island of Quemoy across a two-mile-wide channel and is building villas, hotels and restaurants there. “We don’t want any more hostility,” a government spokesman told Western journalists visiting the Xiamen military zone. For more than 30 years, Peking has been in a state of armed hostility with the Chinese Nationalists on Taiwan, 100 miles from Xiamen. Quemoy, along with its sister island of Matsu, figured prominently in the 1960 U.S. presidential campaign — with Republican Vice President Richard M. Nixon promising to defend it and then-Senator John F. Kennedy taking a more flexible stance.
[Ed: Of course this did not last. The Chinese played the Long Game, using western naiveté to build up their economy and military. China now has hundreds of missiles targeted on Taiwan.]
At the end of a dirt road, past the French troops guarding the way, 10 Melanesians killed last week received their funeral rites Saturday on a palm- and pine-covered tribal burial ground on the island of New Caledonia. Women wailed and men keened. Inside a simple cement building with a corrugated steel roof, 10 coffins were laid side by side. Alongside the building three men, stripped to the waist, were shoveling the last dirt from 10 graves. The clearing in the tropical foliage, about 15 miles outside this town, was filled with a few hundred people, nearly all Melanesians, or Kanakas. They were friends, relatives and supporters of the dead men. Before the coffins were lowered into their graves, a few men spoke, saying that the cause of those who perished was righteous and that they did not die in vain. The killing of the 10 last Wednesday night in an ambush here, on the northeast coast of New Caledonia, was the worst outbreak of violence in three weeks of trouble. The unrest, many say, has permanently changed the political climate of this French territory in the South Pacific, polarizing the independence- seeking Melanesians and the loyalists, and making recurrent spasms of violence more likely.
An anti-Sandinista leader told a rally of some 1,500 Nicaraguan exiles at a park in this township north of Miami today that the Reagan Administration had a “duty to find a formula” for supporting Nicaraguan rebels. The leader, Adolfo Calero, was introduced as the commander in chief of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the anti-Sandinista group organized in Honduras with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency and now operating largely in northern Nicaragua. He said he was speaking in the name of 15,000 men and women, 12,000 of them armed, fighting the Government of Nicaragua.
As part of an effort to obtain increased aid and diplomatic concessions from the United States, Honduras has recently presented a new series of demands to the Reagan Administration, according to Honduran and American officials. They said the new demands include a request that Washington resettle 12,000 Nicaraguan rebels in the United States if their military campaign against the Sandinistas collapses. The new demands also include proposals that the United States intervene to settle a Honduran border dispute with El Salvador, and that the United States stop treating all American military forces in Honduras as diplomatic personnel. Honduran and United States officials both say Honduras has linked future use of its territory for American military exercises and the forward basing of military supplies to its requests.
Five weeks before Brazil’s indirect presidential election, the departing military Government seems to have accepted the anticipated defeat of its candidate and has begun working to insure a smooth transition to opposition civilian rule. Although the opposition candidate, Tancredo Neves, has long been favored to win the vote Jan. 15 in the Electoral College, there had been speculation that the Government might alter the succession rules in a last-minute effort to gain an official victory. But over the last three weeks, the Government of President Joao Baptista Figueiredo has seemingly abandoned the Democratic Social Party’s candidate, Paulo Salim Maluf, with leading officials now openly referring to his defeat as unavoidable.
Britain handed over one of its Antarctic bases to Chile in an unpublicized agreement with the Chilean Ambassador in London early this year, The Observer reported. There was no immediate official confirmation of the report. The Sunday newspaper said that the base on Adelaide Island, about 1,000 miles south of the Falkland Islands, is in a sector claimed by Britain, Chile and Argentina and that the transfer had provoked “sharp protests from nationalist extremists in Argentina.” The base consists of about six huts with food stores, a generator, fuel and an airstrip and has not been used since 1976, The Observer said.
Chad’s food reserves total 362 tons, according to a representative of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, who has monitored the spread of famine in a country whose civil war has attracted more attention than its hunger. International relief agencies consider Chad to be among the four most severely affected by famine in Africa. The others are Ethiopia, Mozambique and Mauritania. At the edge of the grid of squat and square mud houses in the market town of Moussoro in western Chad, a second town has sprung up, about as populous. Some 11,000 people trying to escape hunger have pitched crudely woven mats over wooden sticks and sit or lie before their low huts, waiting for food. For about a month, they say, they have received nothing, either from the Government of President Hissen Habre or from the many international relief organizations that work in Chad.
William J. Schroeder told reporters in his first interview that he felt “super” and declared the experiment in which he received an artificial heart a success. He said he was not bothered by being tethered to the machines that keep him alive. He appeared alert and eager to talk, his color was good, and he bared to the world his healing scars and the tubes that carry the air that powers his heart, placed in his chest Nov. 25 by Dr. William C. DeVries. “I had only 40 days to live” before deciding he wanted the implant operation, Mr. Schroeder said. “And with this new heart I feel like I’ve got 10 years.”
The President and First Lady participate in a photo opportunity for the official White House Christmas picture.
The President and First Lady attend the “Christmas in Washington Special” an NBC television program.
The President and First Lady return to a White House decorated for Christmas.
The loss of 37 New England trawlers at sea in the last four years has raised suspicions among fishermen and insurers that some boats were sent under intentionally. The commercial fishing fleets on the other coasts of the United States are embattled, too. In addition to fished-out seas, rising insurance rates and increased foreign competition, the industry has been troubled by insurance companies that were discovered to have phantom assets and by a new willingness of crew members to sue over injuries on the job.
A call for wage concessions by one of the nation’s largest meat processing companies brought out a demonstration of several thousand protesters in Austin, Minnesota. George A. Hormel & Co., saying that it desperately needed the concessions, decided to cut salaries by 23 percent, reducing the average hourly wage from $10.69 to $8.25.
The enlarged scope of the agency that controls the Federal budget is one of the most far-reaching changes under the Reagan Administration, officials and outside experts say. In a move toward increased centralization of the Federal Government, the Office of Management and Budget, has been given broader powers to scrutinize the rules being drafting by all Federal agencies. Reagan Administration officials say the move is creating greater efficiency, while critics see it as an ominous trend.
Inspections of tail sections of all American-operated Bandeirante planes were ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration. The emergency order followed the crash Thursday in Florida of a Bandeirante plane operated by the Provincetown-Boston Airline. The Brazilian-made Bandeirante planes are operated by about 20 airlines in the United States. The Florida crash that killed 13 people was believed to have been caused by a defective tail assembly.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered U.S. commuter airlines flying Brazilian-made planes such as the one that crashed in Jacksonville, Florida, to temporarily remove those planes from service for a thorough inspection of possible flaws in the tail area. The action will affect about 130 planes operated by more than 20 U.S. commuter airlines in all sections of the country, including Imperial Airlines in California. The plane involved is an Embraer 110, known as the Bandeirante or Bandit. A Provincetown-Boston Airlines Bandeirante crashed almost immediately after takeoff from Jacksonville International Airport on Thursday evening, killing all 13 on board.
A 29-hour bargaining session between the Chicago Teachers Union and the school board ended without a settlement, ensuring the strike in the nation’s third-largest district will enter its second week. The strike that has idled 431,000 students enters its sixth day today. Sources close to the contract talks said negotiators have offered to provide teachers with a salary increase of 0.5% to take effect in January and a one-time, 1% bonus. Jacqueline Vaughn, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, said earlier that the union had exchanged proposals with the Board of Education on salary and salary-related matters, and that the talks were proceeding slowly.
Catholic parish priests, romanticized in films like “The Bells of St. Mary’s” and portrayals by Bing Crosby and Pat O’Brien, have been declining in number and replaced by laymen, said a study issued in South Bend, Indiana. Laymen and women now occupy more than 80% of leadership roles and nearly 60% of paid positions in U.S. Catholic parishes, according to the first report from the University of Notre Dame’s Study of Catholic Parish Life.
The American Automobile Association endorsed state laws requiring mandatory use of safety belts over proposed federal regulations to install air bags in new automobiles. The AAA, the nation’s largest motor and travel organization, released a national survey that showed 67% of those questioned preferred safety belt-use laws to 27% who wanted passive crash protection such as air bags, which inflate during an auto accident. Six percent were undecided. AAA spokesman W. Allan Wilbur said the group believes compulsory seat belt-use laws could save 5,000 lives annually. W. Allan Wilbur, a spokesman for the association, said the group believed compulsory seat belt laws could save 5,000 lives annually, beginning at once. “But it would take years to install airbags in new cars and it would take even longer to have the devices in all cars,” he said. The Transportation Department this year proposed that automatic safety devices be required in new cars by the end of the decade unless two-thirds of the population was covered by mandatory safety-belt laws.
A New York City police sergeant with 33 years on the force allegedly shot and killed a woman motorist with whom he quarreled after a minor traffic accident in Queens, police said. Sgt. Rudolph Hayes, 56, was arrested and charged with murder 16 hours after Sharon Walker, 33, was fatally shot in the back at an intersection in the borough’s Jamaica section, police said. Hayes also allegedly fired on a passerby who was not injured, police said. The exact motive for the shooting had not been determined by investigators.
The bodies of three men who disappeared after setting out to ferry a fishing boat across Cape Cod Bay were found today after a 12-hour Coast Guard search, but there was no sign of the boat. The three men had set out at 11 AM Saturday from Rock Harbor on the inside crook of the cape’s elbow to move the 45-foot trawler Sarah about 15 miles west across the bay to Sandwich Harbor, Carolyn Feldman, a Coast Guard spokesman said. Lieut. Keith Belanger of the Coast Guard said today the boat evidently sank and left the men in the water with little protection. The water temperature was estimated at 42 degrees Fahrenheit.
The ship Sir Walter Raleigh embarks Tuesday from New York on the second leg of a four-year, 110,000-mile global odyssey intended to guide youthful zeal toward scientific discovery, improvement of social conditions and leadership. “We’re not trying to change the world, we just are seeking people who can lead,” said British Army Colonel John Blashford-Snell, noted adventurer and leader of Operation Raleigh, which he and Britain’s Prince Charles organized.
Fly-by-night petroleum wholesalers, possibly connected to an organized crime family in New York, stole from $40 million to $200 million in gasoline tax revenues in Florida, it was reported. The money was easily pocketed because the gas tax collection system depends on the wholesalers’ honesty, and the firms get out of business before their paperwork can be checked, the Fort Lauderdale News/Sun-Sentinel said. Similar tax schemes have been reported in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Wholesalers are responsible for collecting of 9.7 cents per gallon in state taxes, 9 cents in Federal taxes and any additional county taxes from retail service stations.
U.S. protesters against apartheid expanded their demonstrations to dealers in South Africa’s gold Krugerrand coins. The movement’s leaders, who want to stop the sales of the coins abroad, say they are a source of income for the Government.
Australian Open Men’s Tennis: Sweden’s Mats Wilander wins 2nd straight Australian title; beats Kevin Curren of South Africa 6–7, 6–4, 7–6, 6–2.
Senior PGA Championship, PGA National GC: Australian Peter Thomson wins his lone Champions Tour major title by 3 strokes from Don January.
NFL Football:
LA Ram Eric Dickerson rushes 215 yards for season record 2,105 yards.
Cincinnati Bengals 24, New Orleans Saints 21
San Diego Chargers 13, Denver Broncos 16
Green Bay Packers 20, Chicago Bears 14
Seattle Seahawks 7, Kansas City Chiefs 34
Houston Oilers 16, Los Angeles Rams 27
Miami Dolphins 35, Indianapolis Colts 17
New England Patriots 17, Philadelphia Eagles 27
Cleveland Browns 20, Pittsburgh Steelers 23
New York Giants 21, St. Louis Cardinals 31
Atlanta Falcons 6, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 23
Washington Redskins 30, Dallas Cowboys 28
Ken Anderson, playing for the first time in a month, threw for 191 yards and 2 touchdowns to keep Cincinnati’s playoffs hopes alive, lifting the Bengals to a 24–21 victory over the host New Orleans Saints. Anderson entered the game early in the second quarter and soon directed the Bengals’ 78- yard scoring drive, completing a 27- yard touchdown pass to the running back James Brooks to make the score 10–0. Five minutes later, he marched the Bengals 63 yards with 7 straight completions, connecting with Stanford Jennings on a 15-yard scoring pass. Jennings also ran 1 yard for a touchdown early in the final quarter.
Rich Karlis, atoning for failures in two previous games, had three field goals, including a 28-yarder with 2:08 left, to give the Broncos a 16–13 win over the San Diego Chargers, as Denver snapped a two-game losing streak and got back into first place in the American Conference West. Karlis’s 28-yarder capped a 40-yard drive as the Broncos overcame three turnovers that led to all of San Diego’s points. Karlis had hit the right upright on a 25-yard field goal try in the waning moments of Denver’s 27–24 loss to Seattle two weeks ago. Last week he hit the left upright on a 42-yard attempt as time expired and Denver lost to Kansas City, 16–13.
Walter Payton, the star rusher for the Chicago Bears, made his National Football League debut at quarterback today, then said he would just as soon stay a halfback. Payton played one series at quarterback late in the first half, did not complete a pass and was intercepted once in a 20–14 loss to the Green Bay Packers. However, he did throw a 2-yard scoring pass to Matt Suhey on the option as a halfback in the third quarter. “It’s O.K., but I wouldn’t want to make a living out of it,” said Payton, who had worked out as backup to Rusty Lisch when Steve Fuller was injured in a loss Monday night to San Diego. “After 10 years in this league, there isn’t much that can surprise me.” Payton went in after four fumbles by Lisch. Coach Mike Ditka said he had inserted Payton, who wound up with 175 yards on 35 carries and one rushing touchdown, to see what the all-pro could do. In the second half, Lisch returned and Payton did not make it back to quarterback. Rich Campbell, a third-string Packer quarterback, threw two touchdown passes, including the 42- yard game-winner to Phil Epps with 34 seconds to play.
Rookie linebacker Scott Radecic returned an interception 19 yards for a touchdown to highlight a 17-point second-quarter that carried the Kansas City Chiefs to a 34–7 upset of the Seattle Seahawks (12–3) today. The loss snapped Seattle’s eight-game winning streak as they fell into a tie for first place with the Denver Broncos in the American Football Conference West. The two division leaders meet on Saturday. Nick Lowery kicked a 29-yard field goal and Bill Kenney threw a 26-yard touchdown pass to Henry Marshall during the second period to give the Chiefs (7–8) their second consecutive upset of an A.F.C. West leader. Kansas City knocked the Denver Broncos out of first place last week with a 16–13 victory. The Chiefs intercepted six passes. Lowery kicked his 29-yard field goal for a 10–7 lead 3 minutes 30 seconds minutes into the second quarter and on Seattle’s next play, Radecic, a second-round draft pick from Penn State, intercepted a Dave Krieg pass in the right flat and trotted untouched into the end zone for his first career score and a 17–7 lead. The Seahawks then turned the ball over on downs and Kenney needed only 6 plays to cover 79 yards for a 24–7 lead with his 26-yard touchdown pass to Marshall. Kenney also threw a 25-yard third- period touchdown pass and completed 18 of 37 passes for 312 yards before departing after three quarters. Marshall caught 8 passes for 166 yards.
Eric Dickerson shattered O. J. Simpson’s single-season rushing record in the National Football League today, running for 215 yards, and scored twice as the Los Angeles Rams downed the Houston Oilers, 27–16. Dickerson, the second-year pro from Southern Methodist, went into the game needing 211 yards to match Simpson’s 11-year-old mark of 2,003 yards. He surpassed the mark late in the fourth quarter, gaining 9 yards on his 27th carry of the game. Dickerson, who set a league rushing record for a rookie in 1983 when he gained 1,808 yards, left the game after his record-setting carry, which gave him 2,007 yards on the season. The victory gave the Rams a 10–5 record and sent them into the final game of the season against San Francisco Friday night with a chance to earn a National Conference wild-card playoff berth. Dickerson, a 6-foot-3-inch, 218-pound speedster, eclipsed Simpson’s record in the 15th game of the season. Simpson had established the standard in a 14-game season. Dickerson has carried the ball 353 times this season; Simpson carried 332 times when he set the record with the Buffalo Bills in 1973. Dickerson scored on a 6-yard run with 5 minutes 49 seconds remaining as the Rams finally shook off the pesky Oilers, whose record fell to 3–12. Houston, within striking distance of Los Angeles for most of the game, had pulled to 20–16 on Joe Cooper’s third field goal of the game, an 18-yarder midway through the third quarter. Dickerson’s other touchdown run was a 7-yard burst that staked Los Angeles to a 14–3 advantage 10:32 into the game. The Rams’ other scoring came on a 57-yard pass from Jeff Kemp to Drew Hill with less than two minutes played, and field goals of 35 and 19 yards by Mike Lansford. Houston’s only touchdown was a 4-yard run by Larry Moriarty in the second quarter. Cooper also had field goals of 21 and 42 yards.
Behind four second-half touchdown passes by Dan Marino, Miami (13–2) overcame a 17–7 halftime deficit as the Dolphins beat the Indianapolis Colts, 35–17. Marino threw for touchdowns on the Dolphins’ first two third-quarter possessions. The Indianapolis defense, strong in the first 30 minutes, was devastated in the second half by Marino, who finished the game with 29 completions in 41 attempts for 404 yards. Marino now has 44 touchdown passes and four 400-yard passing games this season — both NFL records.
The Eagles, who scored three running touchdowns all season, picked up three against New England today as they defeated the Patriots, 27–17. Philadelphia scored on two short sweeps by the quarterback Joe Pisarcik and a 10-yard run by Wilbert Montgomery. New England (8–7) was eliminated from playoff contention. The Eagles tied it, 10–10, with 5:42 remaining in the second period on a 50-yard field goal by Paul McFadden. The key play in the drive was a 33- yard pass from Pisarcik to the wide receiver Mike Quick. The Eagles went ahead, 17–10, with 54 seconds left when Montgomery scored from the 10, after a 16-yard bootleg by Pisarcik. Philadelphia made it 20–10 early in the third period after a 45-yard, 8-play drive. McFaddenkicked a 46-yard field goal, his league-leading 29th of the season. New England reduced the deficit to 20–17 at 12:04 in the third period on an 83-yard, 12-play drive. Mosi Tatupu ran 13 yards to the 1 and fumbled into the end zone, where Cedric Jones recovered for a touchdown. The Eagles moved ahead, 27–17, when the safety Wes Hopkins partially blocked a punt by Rich Camarillo, and it was recovered by the Eagles at the New England 3. After two incomplete passes, Pisarcik swept right for the touchdown. It was the first time Camarillo had a punt blocked in his five-year National Football League career.
Gary Anderson kicked a 34-yard field goal with five seconds left to enable Pittsburgh (8–7) to keep sole possession of first place in the American Football Conference Central, one game ahead of Cincinnati, as the Steelers edged the Cleveland Browns, 23–20. The Steelers play the Raiders in Los Angeles next week and the Bengals are hosts to the Bills. The Browns (4–11) came back from deficits of 17–13 at halftime and 20–13 after three quarters to tie the score, 20–20, with 8:49 left on quarterback Paul McDonald’s 3-yard run. The scored capped a 12-play, 79-yard drive. The Steelers’ last possession started on their own 44 with 3:09 left to play. They ran eight plays before Anderson came in to kick the game-winning field goal.
Just when everything was going right for the New York Giants, just when they seemed about to move one step away from a playoff berth, everything fell apart today. The St. Louis Cardinals’ passing game, which the Giants shut down three weeks ago, revived itself today. The Cardinals’ running game, built around O. J. Anderson, was good enough. The Giants missed tackles, Neil Lomax scrambled out of the hands of defenders, Roy Green resurrected himself as a receiver and the Cardinals made big plays over and over. With all that, the Cardinals, also trying to stay alive in the hectic playoff picture, won, 31–21. Now, with one game left in the National Football League’s regular season, the Giants’ record has dropped to 9–6 and the Cardinals have climbed to 9–6. By beating the Dallas Cowboys, 30-28, today, the Washington Redskins moved to 10–5 and sole possession of first place and dropped the Cowboys to 9–6. Those four teams play in the National Conference’s Eastern Division. A tipped pass that became an interception led to the touchdown that gave the Cardinals a 14–7 lead in the second quarter. After the Giants had tied the score, Stump Mitchell’s 56- yard kickoff return set up the touchdown that gave the Cardinals a 21–14 lead in the third quarter. After the Giants had tied the score later that quarter, the Cardinals put away the game in the last quarter. The clinching field goal was set up when Dave Jennings’s punt bounced back and covered only 22 yards.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers routed the Atlanta Falcons, 23–6. James Wilder became the seventh player in NFL history to gain more than 2,000 total yards in a season, rushing for 125 yards and a touchdown to lead Tampa Bay. Obed Ariri also kicked field goals of 30, 36 and 28 yards as the Buccaneers won for only the second in the last nine weeks. Atlanta (3–12) lost its ninth consecutive game. The contest was played before 33,808 people, the smallest home crowd in the Buccaneers’ history.
For the first time in eight weeks, one team, the Washington Redskins, has first place to itself in the Eastern Division of the National Conference. By defeating the Dallas Cowboys today, 30–28, the Redskins put themselves in position to win the title in the league’s most competitive division next Sunday with a victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in Washington. The victory gave them a 10–5 record and a one-game lead over the Cowboys, Giants and the Cardinals. But more significantly, the other teams in the conference still eligible to make the playoffs — the Giants, the Cardinals, the Cowboys and the Los Angeles Rams, who were 10–5 after defeating the Houston Oilers today — will spend the week pondering the possibilities that could put two of them in the playoffs. Each quarterback was chased around so much that it seemed amazing either could get anything done. Yet, they did, and although White’s numbers were more impressive — 22 pass completions in 42 attempts for 327 yards and 4 touchdowns — he was intercepted twice. One interception started the crumble that took the Cowboys from a 21–6 lead at the half to a 23–21 deficit after three quarters. The league’s leading receiver before the game, Art Monk had seven more catches for 80 yards, plus an 18-yard gain on a reverse, with Theismann blocking. That run and a 14-yard Monk reception on a square-out to the right helped set up the Redskins’ final touchdown.
Born:
Leon Hall, NFL cornerback (Cincinnati Bengals, New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders), in Vista, California.
History Diaries 