A warning on missile deployment was delivered by Secretary of State George P. Shultz in meetings in Brussels with Belgian and Dutch officials. Mr. Shultz told them that the chances for progress in arms control talks with the Soviet Union would be set back if they did not carry out commitments to deploy American cruise missiles. American and allied officials said the message was conveyed by Secretary of State George P. Shultz in meetings here with Belgian and Dutch officials. An aide to Mr. Shultz said he had found the meetings “positive.” “They told us they would do their best to do their duty, but they also pointed out the problems they have,” the aide said. The Belgian and Dutch Governments have encountered domestic opposition to deploying the missiles under a NATO plan, first set forth five years ago, to counter the Soviet Union’s SS-20 medium-range missiles by stationing cruise missiles and Pershing 2 ballistic missiles in Western Europe.
Belgium is supposed to deploy 48 cruise missiles starting in March, and the Netherlands also 48, in 1986. Britain, Italy and West Germany have already begun their deployment. There will eventually be 464 cruise missiles. In addition, West Germany is supposed to deploy 108 Pershing 2 missiles. Allied officials have said that if the Dutch and the Belgians do not live up to their commitment, political pressure may force other countries to scale back their deployment, reducing pressure on the Russians to negotiate. “It is harmful if undertakings are not adhered to,” Mr. Shultz said in a news conference aboard his plane en route from Britain for the annual winter meeting of foreign ministers from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Cyprus’ President Spyros Kyprianou and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash will meet January 17 for their first face-to-face talks on the future of their divided island in 5½ years, U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar announced. He has been negotiating separately! with the two Cypriot leaders in New York since late last month. The site of the meeting has not been decided. The secretary general’s announcement indicated that the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities are still divided over at least some details of a federal system of government. Cyprus has been partitioned since troops from Turkey occupied the northern part of the island in 1974.
The Solidarity union underground accused Polish police of beating a university lecturer to death, but the government said the man died from a skull fracture when he collapsed outside his home in a drunken stupor. The death of university lecturer Andrzej Grebosz in Lodz, 65 miles southwest of Warsaw, was described in the Solidarity underground’s illegal newspaper as “another police murder.” But government spokesman Jerzy Urban denied the charges, saying, “Nobody was beaten up.” Meanwhile, church authorities announced that Pope John Paul II plans another visit to his homeland, in 1987, to attend a eucharistic congress in Gdansk.
Leaders of Britain’s 10-million-member labor movement announced a new bid to end the nine-month-old strike by two-thirds of the country’s 189,000 miners. The Trades Union Congress said it will meet Energy Minister Peter Walker and ask him to use his influence to bring the National Coal Board and the miners’ leaders back to the negotiating table. Congress leader Norman Willis told reporters that the dispute over plans to close money-losing pits can only be settled through direct negotiations. The latest talks broke down October 31.
A car bomb exploded outside the Druze religious center in West Beirut today as artillery duels raged in the mountains east and southeast of here between Druse and Christian militiamen for a second day. The police said three bodies were recovered from the scene of the blast, which came at the rush hour and started a big fire, and that nine wounded people were taken to a hospital. They said that not all the casualties had been counted because the building was ringed by Druze militiamen and soldiers from the army’s Sixth Brigade. Red Cross volunteers said all the casualties were pedestrians or motorists who were on the street when the explosion occurred shortly after dark. The blast came as artillery shells crashed into the capital’s suburbs. One shell fell only 500 yards from the Presidential Palace in Baabda, where the Cabinet was meeting.
A British engineer detained for more than six months in Libya appeared in a court in Tripoli and was charged with carrying letters containing defamatory information about the regime, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported. Malcolm Anderson was one of four Britons detained after a police siege at the Libyan Embassy in London last April. The three other Britons are still being held without charge.
Iran indicated adamance against extraditing four men who hijacked a Kuwaiti airliner to Tehran last week and killed two Americans, according to an Iranian press account. It said the position was suggested by Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi. The United States has demanded that the hijackers, who killed two Americans, be extradited or prosecuted. The official Iranian press agency quoted the Prime Minister as saying, “If handing over the hijackers was lawful, they should hand over the terrorists who have martyred hundreds inside Iran and who are now continuing their activities with the support of the Americans and the French.” He was alluding to Iranian dissidents whose leaders live in France and who are accused by Iran of having instigated a series of hijackings of Iranian airliners.
Nearly half a million people face starvation in Afghanistan this year, in part because of Soviet saturation bombing in guerrilla areas, European medical and humanitarian groups reported. The Frenchbased voluntary medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres and other French and Belgian groups said at a news conference in Paris that bad weather in addition to increased military activity could trigger a famine. The western region near the Iranian border and the, northeastern area near the Soviet border have suffered from drought, the groups said.
The poisonous methyl isocyanate still in storage at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, is to be neutralized by conversion into a pesticide, as occurred routinely when the factory was operating normally, the Government said. It said the procedure would start Sunday morning and take four to five days. Concern about the remaining poisonous chemical has been increasing for several days, prompting thousands of residents to leave the city.
The Vietnamese-backed government of Cambodia routinely and brutally tortures political prisoners, a New York-based human rights group said. A report by the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights said, “The rule of law is not respected in any serious sense” in Cambodia. Civil liberties attorney Floyd Abrams, who visited the area and was co-author of the group’s report, said the most common form of torture is beating with truncheons, metal pipes or rifle butts. Of the Khmer Rouge, Mr. Abrams said: “It would appear that the murderous practices of the mid-1970’s are no longer the order of the day. But severly restrictive controls over daily life remain a pervasive reality.”
China announced today that Ivan V. Arkhipov, a Soviet First Deputy Prime Minister, would visit China for official talks beginning December 21. Other than brief exchanges between officials of the two sides at the funeral in Moscow this year of Yuri V. Andropov, the visit will mark the highest-ranking direct contacts between Moscow and Peking in more than 15 years. An official who discussed the coming visit last week made it plain that China did not expect it to lead to any breakthrough on the major issues.
The Salvadoran Government said today that it would join a holiday cease-fire announced by leftist guerrillas. The announcement was made by Information Minister Oscar Reyes in a telephone interview.
The Inter-American Development Bank has approved a $48 million loan for Chile to finance oil and gas exploration, improve refineries and build a gas pipeline. A bank spokesman declined to say if the 20-year loan had been approved unanimously by the Western and Latin donor nations represented on the bank’s board.
Ethiopia is “biting the hand” that feeds it by blaming Western countries for the extent of the famine devastating the country, according to M. Peter McPherson, the head of the United States food relief program. Mr. McPherson defended the American relief effort, calling it the largest in the world, and charged that Ethiopian officials were not cooperating with American efforts to have huge amounts of food unloaded at ports, preferring to use their limited harbor facilities to unload cement. In his news conference and in a speech earlier in the day before the United States Chamber of Commerce, Mr. McPherson defended the American relief effort, calling it the largest in the world, and criticized Ethiopia’s handling of famine relief.
A bloodless coup in Mauritania was carried out by the army chief of staff while the President was out of the country. The chief of staff, Colonel Maouya Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya, closed all airports in the northwest African country. The President, Mohammed Khouna Ould Haidalla, who had been in Burundi for a French-African summit meeting, flew today to Brazzaville in Congo.
The Mozambican Army has reported killing 1,131 rebels in the last six months, the official news agency said today. The agency said the Chief of Staff, General Sebastiao Mabote, said at a meeting of officers that 101 camps of the Mozambique National Resistance had been destroyed and 225 rebels captured.
Three dissidents who have occupied Britain’s consulate in Durban for 91 days left today and two of them were immediately arrested on charges of high treason, an offense that carries the death penalty. The police arrested 72-year-old Archie Gumede, the black president of the anti-Government United Democratic Front, and Paul David, an Indian, as they emerged from the consulate. The two were escorted through a back door to waiting police vans.
Some savings in military spending were proposed by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger as pressure grew within the Reagan Administration for him to impose a one-year delay in the military buildup. Officials said the offer was well short of the proposed three- year slowdown in military spending that is being urged on the President by his budget director, David A. Stockman. Estimates of the Defense Secretary’s proposals varied, particularly regarding their effect over three years. But for next year’s budget, the saving was said to be something less than the $8 billion that some of Mr. Reagan’s advisers are urging. Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan argued that the military budget had been enriched by “over a trillion dollars” in the Reagan Administration and appeared to be sturdy enough for national defense.
President Reagan vowed to fight for the controversial MX nuclear missile despite warnings by Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona), prospective chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, that neither house of Congress will support continued production of the weapon. Administration sources said Reagan, in a private 3-minute meeting with Goldwater, urged the senator to “keep an open mind” on the MX and insisted that the missile is a vital bargaining chip in arms-control negotiations scheduled to resume next month with the Soviet Union.
President Reagan meets with members of the President’s Task Force on International Private Enterprise.
President Reagan participates in a ceremony to plant a commemorative 20 foot Sugar Maple tree on the White House grounds.
William J. Schroeder was telephoned by President Reagan to wish him well, and the artificial heart patient immediately complained he had been unsuccessfully trying to obtain Social Security benefits for nine months. In response, Mr. Reagan promised to “get on it right away.”
The President and First Lady host a Christmas Party for Members of the Press and their families.
Criticism of the Federal Reserve chairman was expressed by Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. He charged that a “remarkably tight” management of the nation’s money supply by the chairman, Paul A. Volcker, was slowing growth and damaging Christmas business. Mr. Regan said it was “possible but not probable” that the current economic lull would turn into a recession.
The Agency for International Development refused today to renew funding of $17 million a year for the private International Planned Parenthood Federation, citing the group’s financing of abortion- related services overseas. The aid agency said in a statement that United States policy adopted this year provides that the Government will no longer make grants to “nongovernmental organizations which perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.”
The Federal Aviation Administration’s special inspection of the nation’s 327 airlines last spring found that while 95% followed federal safety rules, the rest had problems and the FAA must improve surveillance of the industry. The report of that 90-day inspection comes amid renewed concern that the FAA is not equipped to keep pace with an industry changing rapidly since deregulation in 1978.
The “superfund” program to clean up toxic waste dumps could eventually cost $11.7 billion in its present form and possibly twice that much, the Environmental Protection Agency told Congress. In addition, the EPA said the eventual cost could be an overwhelming sum if it is forced to expand to cover new threats. Current law authorizes a cleanup fund of $1.6 billion. EPA’s worst-case “central estimate” of cleanup costs, $22.7 billion, was $6.7 billion higher than the possible upper limit that agency Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus gave earlier this year, based on 1,800 to 2,200 cleanups.
Robert C. Byrd easily defeated a challenge by Senator Lawton Chiles of Florida and was re-elected as the Senate minority leader. The 47 Democrats who will serve in the new Congress voted, 36 to 11, for the West Virginian, who has led his party in the Senate for eight years.
Alpha Otis Stephens was executed in Georgia’s electric chair early today for murdering a building contractor who surprised him during a 1974 burglary. Stephens, who was convicted of 19 felonies, was executed at Georgia’s Diagnostic and Classification Center in Jackson. The 39-year-old habitual criminal was put to death after the Supreme Court, which had reviewed his case five times since 1976, denied his final appeal by a 5–3 vote. Georgia executed 39-year-old Alpha Otis Stephens for murdering a man who interrupted a 1974 burglary. It took two charges of electricity 10 minutes apart to kill the inmate. Mr. Stephens was the 31st person to be executed in the country since the Supreme Court restored capital punishment in 1976.
Sixteen demonstrators, mostly educators, were arrested in front of the South African consulate in Manhattan as part of continuing nationwide protests against apartheid. Among those taken into custody was Osborn Elliott, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and a former editor-in-chief of Newsweek magazine. Elliott said as head of Newsweek he deplored “the thought of our journalists getting involved in anti-war protests.” But as an educator and speaking as an individual, Elliott said, “The time has come for American citizens who feel as strongly as I do about the horrors of apartheid to speak out.”
Doctors and nurses who take care of AIDS victims face very little risk of catching the disease from patients, even if they accidentally jab themselves with needles, according to a study released in Boston. The report was made public a day after health officials said a technician in a Boston-area lab may have caught AIDS when he pricked himself with a needle while drawing blood. However, the researchers said their survey found that none of the health workers, with an average exposure of eight months, had contracted AIDS.
Milwaukee officials declined today to take immediate action to guarantee pension benefits to the widow of a policeman who died of leukemia 14 days before she would have been entitled to the money. The policeman, Sgt. John Pederson, 43 years old, a 20-year veteran of the force, would have had to live until December 24 for the pension of $1,100 a month to be transferred to his wife, Judy, after his death. He died Monday. The Common Council had scheduled a special meeting today to consider a resolution to amend the current labor contract to remove the waiting period for the pension benefits, but members of the Council Finance Committee decided that the matter should be considered first by labor negotiators. “We want to make sure she is taken care of,” said the committee chairman, Alderwoman Sandra Hoeh. “But we should do it properly.” She said action by the negotiators and the Council could be completed by December 21.
The Nativity scene that was removed from the Chicago City Hall after several non-Christian religious groups objected to it will be back on display this week, the Mayor’s office announced Tuesday. The decision to restore the display was made at a meeting between Mayor Harold Washington and his chief of staff, William Ware, who had ordered the creche removed Saturday. Aldermen had planned to force a showdown on the issue at today’s City Council meeting. Alderman Edward Burke had denounced the removal of the display. The display will include a disclaimer indicating that public funds were not used.
The Air Force said it is studying whether to allow women to work with men as crew members on 24-hour alert in the two-person Minuteman missile silos. Captain James Berg, an Air Force spokesman, said the basic problems in a Minuteman silo are the lack of privacy and the “stress” that could be placed on both the crew members and their spouses if a man and woman were locked into a missile launch chamber together for 24 hours or more.
A Manhattan Beach preschool facility searched last week by sheriff’s deputies was ordered closed today because of allegations that a 3-year-old pupil had been sexually assaulted there. The order by the State Department of Social Services alleged that officials of the school, The Learning Game, “knew or should have known” that from about October 1983 until November 1984, “J. F., a 3-year-old child, while being cared for and supervised by the staff of the facility, had been sexually assaulted on numerous occasions.” The child was not identified further. The Learning Game has 15 days to appeal the suspension, and school officials are entitled to an administrative hearing within 30 days of the appeal. The Learning Game was searched on December 3 by 32 sheriff’s deputies bearing warrants issued after five pupils complained of sexual abuse. Three of the children, the sheriff’s department said, were former pupils at the McMartin Preschool, also of Manhattan Beach, where seven school officials have been charged with child abuse.
[NOTE: The searches failed to uncover any evidence to substantiate allegations that five children – -three of them purportedly swapped from the McMartin school- – had been sexually molested at the Learning Game. In a statement after their school was closed, owners Helen and John Stearns said, “We know in our hearts that when all the facts and the full truth are known, we will be shown to be innocent.” Their school never reopened. More Hysteria of the 1980s.]
A warning on cholesterol was issued by an expert panel that called for dietary and other treatment for millions of Americans whose cholesterol levels have until now been considered normal by many doctors. The experts said that average cholesterol levels among Americans are too high and contribute to the deaths of half the population by heart disease.
Increased postal rates were announced by John R. McKean, the chairman of the Postal Service’s board of governors. He said the price of a first-class stamp would rise 2 cents, to 22 cents, on Feb. 17. Mr. McKean said that labor costs consumed more than 80 percent of postal revenue and that future rate rises might be necessary.
A powerful storm system struck the Rockies, glazing mountain roads and dumping up to 18 inches of snow on Colorado. One person died in a traffic accident on an icy highway near Denver. Two school buses collided east of Colorado Springs, and slick roads caused an 11-car pileup near Castle Rock. The storm was expected to dump another foot of snow in the mountains, with the wind chill as low as 40 degrees below zero.
The St. Louis Cardinals send slugger George Hendrick and a minor leaguer to the Pittsburgh Pirates for pitcher John Tudor and Brian Harper. Tudor, at 12–11, was the ace of the Bucs’ staff, which set a record by having the National League’s best ERA, though the team finished last. The 35-year-old Hendrick will play just a half season in the Iron City before going to California.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1175.13 (-3.2)
Born:
Richard Marshall, NFL cornerback (Carolina Panthers, Arizona Cardinals, Miami Dolphins, San Diego Chargers), in Los Angeles, California.
Philip Wheeler, NFL linebacker (Indianapolis Colts, Oakland Raiders, Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons), in Columbus, Georgia.
Mike Moore, Canadian NHL defenseman (San Jose Sharks), in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
History Diaries 