Mikhail S. Gorbachev told Sir Geoffrey Howe, the British Foreign Secretary, that the Soviet leadership considers it “especially important to avert the transfer of the arms race to outer space.” Mr. Gorbachev, the Kremlin’s second in command, said, “If it is not done, then it would be unreal to hope to stop the nuclear arms race.” Mr. Gorbachev’s remarks were made in a luncheon speech that came after a meeting of two hours and 40 minutes with Sir Geoffrey at Hampton Court Palace, the favorite home of King Henry VIII. British souces described today’s meeting as “friendly, substantive, and businesslike.” Mr. Gorbachev, who is here on a week’s visit, met yesterday for more than five hours with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who said today. “I like Mr. Gorbachev — we can do business together.”
Mrs. Thatcher, who left today on a trip that will take her to China and then to visit President Reagan at Camp David next weekend, told the British Broadcasting Corporation that she was “cautiously optimistic” that Mr. Gorbachev’s visit could lead to better East-West relations. Mr. Gorbachev, in a statement issued today by Tass, the Soviet news agency, called his meeting with Mrs. Thatcher “businesslike and constructive.” “On a number of questions, different opinions were given,” he said, “but we agreed that in the present situation, which is fraught with a serious danger, all states should exert maximum efforts in searching for solutions to the problems which are facing the world through constructive talks.” In the discussions today, according to British sources, Mr. Gorbachev expressed deep concern over the Reagan Administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which includes research into a space-based defense against Soviet missiles. Mr. Gorbachev is also worried about antisatellite weapons, which are now being tested by the United States.
President Reagan conferred with his senior advisers again today on what the United States position will be at Soviet-American talks next month on arms control, White House officials said. It was the latest in a series of meetings on the subject. With the Administration divided on how far to go in meeting Soviet insistence on talks to curb development of new defensive weapons in space, some annoyance was voiced here over statements in Paris and London suggesting that key allies were opposed to the so-called Star Wars program for a space-based defense against missiles. The State Department supports research into such defensive programs but sees the “Star Wars” program as a bargaining device in talks with the Soviet Union. The Defense Department is opposed to talks that might limit the “Star Wars” program or the testing of antisatellite weapons.
Solidarity’s former deputy leader, Andrzej Gwiazda, was sentenced to three months in jail for taking part in a demonstration by the outlawed union’s supporters Sunday honoring Poles killed in 1970 food riots. Poland’s state television said Gwiazda, former aide to Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, was found guilty of disturbing the peace in the march in Gdansk, which was broken up by security forces.
A Soviet soldier who came to the United States after defecting in Afghanistan last year and denouncing the Soviet government now says he wants to go home, State Department and Soviet Embassy officials said. They said Nikolai Ryzhkov, 20, asked his embassy in Washington for help in leaving the United States. U.S. officials said Ryzhkov wants to be reunited with relatives and has denied that he is being coerced. The State Department said it was satisfied that the soldier, Nikolai Ryzhkov, had made the decision voluntarily.
Greece announced that it may soon transfer troops from its northern border with East Bloc nations to positions facing Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally with whom it has long been at odds. A government spokesman confirmed reports that Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou announced the plan Saturday at a meeting with Socialist Party officials. The spokesman said a formal proposal will be submitted to the government after the holidays. “Now the Government believes that the threat comes from the east,” Mr. Papandreou was quoted as saying while announcing the plan. A spokesman for the Socialist Government confirmed the accuracy of the reports that the Government is ready to approve a transfer of the Greek armed forces “to face east instead of north.” The Government spokesman said a formal proposal for the move would be submitted to the Defense and Foreign Affairs Government Committee after Christmas.
The 33rd game of the World Chess championship between title holder Anatoly Karpov and challenger Gary Kasparov ended in a draw after 20 moves and slightly more than three hours of play. Karpov, leading the series 5-1, needs only one more victory to retain his crown. Draws do not count in the scoring. The next game is scheduled for Wednesday.
Israeli Government leaders tried without success tonight to settle a dispute between two religious parties in the unity Government. Unless a formula can be found by 9 AM Tuesday, the Cabinet will lose Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz a Minister Without Portfolio from the Shas, Sephardi Torah Guardians Party. He submitted his resignation Sunday morning and it will go into effect unless rescinded within 48 hours. He was to have been named Interior Minister, and his party is in a dispute over the division of responsibilities with the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which is headed by Dr. Yosef Burg of the National Religious Party.
Druze militiamen rained mortar and rocket fire on Christian neighborhoods in and around East Beirut, sending Christmas shoppers scurrying for safety and drawing retaliatory fire from Christian gunmen. A woman was killed and at least 13 people were reported wounded. Military sources said the shelling coincided with fighting between Lebanese soldiers and Druze forces in the Shouf Mountains southeast of the city.
Iraqi warplanes attacked a Greek-owned cargo vessel, their third strike in three days on ships in the Iraq-Iran war zone in the Persian Gulf. The Iraqi military said the ship was hit south of Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal. A spokesman for the owners confirmed that the 12.498-ton Aegis Cosmic had been attacked, with no injuries and little damage. An unidentified Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad said the Iraqi warplanes had attacked a naval target but offered no other details. The shipping and salvage sources, however, identified the vessel and said it was struck 70 miles north of Bahrain, south of the Iraq-Iran war zone. A spokesman for Aegis Shipping, the Aegis Cosmic’s agents in London, said by telephone that the 12,498-gross-ton bulk carrier was carrying agricultural products from Thailand to Kuwait. The vessel was hit on its port side but was able to continue its trip, said Tony Minacoulis, a spokesman.
The medical community of Bhopal, India, faced an emergency of staggering proportions on December 3 as clouds of toxic gas began to escape from the Union Carbide pesticide plant. Tens of thousands of patients began streaming into hospitals of the area, hysterical, rubbing their eyes in pain and gasping for breath. Many doctors themselves were choking and shedding profuse tears because of the fumes. The superintendent of Hamidia Hospital, the largest and closest to the scene of the leak, was coughing so badly he could not take telephone calls for a critical half hour at the start of the crisis. Yet somehow, starting from chaos in the dark of night, the medical system managed to cope very well.
More than half the deadly methyl isocyanate remaining at the Union Carbide plant here has been neutralized by Indian engineers and scientists since the plant began operating again Monday and a top official said the detoxification process should be completed by Wednesday. Arjun Singh, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, told reporters that the operation, in which the toxic chemical is being converted into a pesticide, should take only two more days if production continued without incident.
Five people in Hồ Chí Minh City today were sentenced to death by firing squad after being found guilty of plotting to overthrow the Vietnamese Government with the help of China, Thailand and the United States. The five were among 21 dissidents whose five-day trial on treason and espionage charges ended Monday. Judge Huỳnh Văn Thắng told a packed Supreme Court that the five were the ringleaders of an anti-government organization financed and armed by China and backed by Thailand with help from the United States. He said they were dangerous and had to face the maximum penalty. On hearing his death sentence one defendant shut his eyes and appeared about to faint. Another tried to speak, but a soldier clamped a hand over his mouth, handcuffed him and hustled him away. Three other dissidents were sentenced to life imprisonment and the rest were given jail terms ranging from 8 to 20 years. Under Vietnam’s penal code the five sentenced to death have seven days to appeal for their sentences to be commuted to life imprisonment. There is no appeal against the other sentences.
China’s new “responsibility system,” which lets peasants who produce more earn more, has been a general success. Since the policy change was announced in late 1978, China’s output of grain and potatoes has increased nearly 5 percent a year to reach a record 387 million tons last year. Now that the 800 million peasants are no longer forbidden to find ways to earn money on the side, their average income has more than doubled since 1978 to reach 310 yuan, equivalent to about $117, a person in 1983. However, some regions are still gripped by poverty.
Drug smuggling in the Bahamas has damaged “almost all strata of Bahamian society,” corrupting the police and Cabinet ministers and creating countless young addicts, according to a royal commission report.
A Cuban exile group is organizing a military unit to fight alongside guerrillas opposed to Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista regime, the leader of the exile group said. Huber Matos, head of Cuba Independent and Democratic, said in Miami that he decided to form the unit after spending six weeks with anti-Sandinista rebels of the Honduras-based Nicaraguan Democratic Force, called contras. Matos, once a commander in Fidel Castro’s revolutionary army, spent 20 years in Cuban jails after criticizing Castro’s turn to communism.
Chile’s military Government extended a state of emergency for 90 days today. The state of emergency empowers the Government to restrict press freedom, ban meetings and send citizens into domestic or external exile. It is part of President Augusto Pinochet’s crackdown, begun early last month, to curb political dissent and violent unrest against his 11-year-old military rule. The Democratic Alliance opposition coalition today criticized the decision, saying it would not put an end to guerrilla attacks or solve deep-seated problems.
Citing an ancient connection between the Jewish and Ethiopian peoples, an Israeli philanthropist and fund-raiser has come here to build a fully equipped camp for famine refugees. “From the time of King Solomon, we are related,” said the Israeli, Abie Nathan, referring to the traditional belief that Ethiopian history goes back to a union between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Ethiopia broke relations with Israel in 1973 under pressure from Arab nations. Before then, the two countries had close ties. Ethiopia is also the home of Beta Israel, an ancient group of black Jews also known as Falashas.
Declaring human rights a major concern, the Most Rev. Stephen Naidoo became Roman Catholic archbishop of Cape Town. He is the first Asian to hold that post in the South African church. One of an estimated 800,000 South Africans of essentially Indian descent, Naidoo comes from a group that has been granted some political rights by the white government. His elevation follows that of Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, to the post of bishop of Johannesburg.
Unusual security measures to protect the secrecy of the next space shuttle mission, scheduled for launching January 23, were announced by the Defense Department. The flight will be the first devoted exclusively to military operations. Brigadier General Richard Abel of the Air Force said at a news briefing in Washington that the action was designed to “deny our adversaries” knowledge of the precise launching time and any information on the payload being carried by the space shuttle Discovery. He indicated that similarly strict secrecy would apply to all future military shuttle missions.
President Reagan participates in a photo opportunity with “The Bluegrass Student Union,” the international champion Barber Shop Quartet.
The President and First Lady host a Christmas Party for the U.S. Secret Service.
William J. Schroeder’s doctors now believe the artificial heart patient has suffered three strokes and some loss of memory. Dr. Gary Fox, a neurologist, told reporters that Mr. Schroeder was “very slow to recognize” members of his family and had to be prodded to do so at times and “believes today is Friday,” but he is aware that he is in a hospital, Dr. Gary Fox, a neurologist, said at a news conference. Dr. Allan M. Lansing, the chief medical spokesman for the Humana Hospital-Audubon implant team, said Mr. Schroeder “looks completely normal,” though he is not normal and “looks better than he has at any time” since he received the mechanical heart. He said the patient was more alert than he was Sunday. News that Mr. Schroeder had apparently suffered several strokes rather than just the one last Thursday, as originally thought, resulted from a series of new tests and Dr. Fox’s review of old ones.
Two suspects in a bank robbery Friday in Geronimo, Oklahoma, in which four people were fatally shot were arrested in a San Francisco hotel, the FBI announced. Two suspects in a bank robbery in which four people were shot dead were arrested today at a San Francisco hotel where they were “living it up,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. In Geronimo, residents of this tiny community gathered for the funerals of three of the victims. San Francisco agents arrested two men identified as Jay Wesley Neill, 19 years old, and Robert Grady Johnson, 22 years old, both of Lawton, Oklahoma, according to Tony Daniels, special agent in charge of the bureau in Oklahoma City. In addition to the Federal charges filed today against Mr. Neill and Mr. Johnson, the two will face state murder charges, Dick Tannery, the Comanche County District Attorney, said. He said he would seek the death penalty when they come to trial.
Federal officials said that a white-supremacist group, whose followers have been linked to several armored-car robberies, the slaying of a Denver talk-show host and assaults on federal agents, has 100 to 150 members based in Hayden Lake, Idaho, on a 20-acre compound surrounded by barbed wire and has ties to two extremist prison gangs, the Aryan Brotherhood and the Aryan Special Forces.
A federal jury found two men guilty of kidnapping Edith Rosenkranz, the wife of a wealthy Mexico City businessman, from her Washington hotel last summer and holding her for a $1-million ransom. The jury convicted Glenn I. Wright, 42, of Houston, and Dennis Moss, 26, of Cocoa, Fla., of all 13 charges, including conspiracy and kidnapping. The two men face a maximum of life in prison on the kidnapping charges and almost 100 years on the other counts. A sentencing date was not set.
An attorney for General William C. Westmoreland quoted a memo from a CBS producer telling reporter Mike Wallace to “break” the general in an interview for the broadcast that led to the general’s $120-million libel suit in Manhattan federal court. Westmoreland charges that the CBS broadcast “The Uncounted Enemy: a Vietnam Deception” accused him of deliberately deceiving his superiors about the level of enemy strength to buttress his call for 200,000 more U.S. troops.
Wyoming Governor Ed Herschler commuted the prison term of a teenager who was sentenced to up to eight years in prison for helping her younger brother kill their abusive father. His action came a week after the state’s highest court upheld her conviction. Herschler, saying Deborah Ann Jahnke, 19, should not be punished more than her brother, ordered her placed on probation for one year after psychiatric evaluation at the home for troubled women where she is now residing. The governor earlier this year commuted the prison sentence of Deborah’s brother, Richard John Jahnke, now 18.
The Justice Department filed criminal and civil charges against a man and his wife who allegedly have refused to serve blacks in their Marshall, Virginia, restaurant. U.S. Attorney Elsie L. Munsel said a six count criminal information was filed in U.S. District Court in suburban Alexandria, Virginia, charging them with violating a 1967 court order by refusing to serve blacks in their Belvoir Restaurant in 1983 and 1984. Roy E. McKoy was charged in five counts and his wife, Patricia, was charged in a separate count.
“Serious policy implications” may jeopardize the award of a pension to the wife of a police sergeant who died of cancer two weeks before he was eligible for it, an alderman said today. Sandra Hoeh, chairman of the Common Council’s Finance Committee, said the committee would decide Wednesday whether to make an exception and grant the pension to Judy Pederson, 43 years old. Sgt. John Pederson, 43, died last week, short of the December 24 deadline for qualifying for a full pension. The city’s labor contracts require a 60-day wait after retirement before policemen can receive pensions. If they die in that period, their survivors receive a lump sum payment. Mrs. Pederson would receive a pension of $1,139 a month if the 60-day requirement were waived. The lump sum would total $103,479.
A retired automobile worker whom Israel wants to extradite on charges of World War II crimes argued today that a military court, not a federal court, should try those charged with war crimes. The man, John Demjanjuk, 64 years old, made the argument in a preliminary hearing before Federal District Judge Frank Battisti, who is considering the request for extradition. Israel contends that Mr. Demjanjuk is the guard inmates at the Treblinka death camp in Poland called “Ivan the Terrible.” Mark O’Connor, Mr. Demjanjuk’s lawyer, said only courts such as the one that judged Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, West Germany, had jurisdiction over suspected war criminals. Judge Battisti did not rule on the request to remove the case from the federal courts.
Fertility among U.S. Hispanic women is nearly 50% greater than among other Americans, and females of Mexican descent have the highest fertility rate, a government study indicated. “The fertility rate for women of Hispanic origin was 97.5 live births per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years, 50% higher than the rate for non-Hispanic women,” the National Center for Health Statistics reported. Women of Mexican origin had a fertility rate of 112.3, according to government figures for births in 1981, the latest statistics available.
A Southern Baptist Church congregation has revoked a minister’s ordination because it believes he may be a homosexual. Members of Calvary Baptist Church voted 112 to 2 to strip the Rev. Brian Scott, 29 years old, of his ordination. This ended a dispute that began in 1982 after church deacons learned that he had founded the Gay-Lesbian Christian Fellowship in Charles County.
Demands to see academic research before it is published have been greatly expanded by federal agencies, according to a report circulating at the nation’s top research universities. The 32-page report said the increasing demands and other government restraints threaten “to erode the American tradition of academic freedom.”
After a generation of declining poverty, the South is now experiencing a “staggering” rise in the number of poor people and has reached a poverty level unequaled since the 1960s, according to a study to be issued today from a regional research foundation in Atlanta. Since 1979, the number of poor people in the South has risen from 9.4 million (15.6% of the population) to 12 million (18% of the population), the Southern Regional Council reported in its study, “Patterns of Poverty.” The study is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which sets the poverty threshold at $10,178 for a family of four.
Several oil companies exchanged confidential pricing data from the late 1950’s to the early 1970’s, according to industry documents made public by a federal judge. While the exchange of information is not, in itself, a violation of law, the companies have been accused of price-fixing in California cases. The companies said the documents did not provide a fair picture of their actions.
A town built an elementary school on its own after six years of fruitless efforts to get county, state or federal aid. The residents of Hickory Flat, Mississippi, (pop. 500) raised $60,000 for building materials, and volunteers constructed most of the schoolhouse with cinderblocks.
NFL Monday Night Football:
Dallas Cowboys 21, Miami Dolphins 28
A long weekend of wishful thinking and crossed fingers ended on a stunning note for the New York Giants tonight when the Miami Dolphins scored two touchdowns in the closing minutes to beat the Dallas Cowboys, 28–21, a victory that put the Giants in the playoffs. The Dolphins’ victory, in the 224th and final game of the regular season, enabled the Giants, whose season ended Saturday in a loss to the New Orleans Saints, to win the last of 10 playoff berths. New York will play the Los Angeles Rams in the National Conference wild-card game next Sunday in Anaheim, California, where the Rams beat the Giants, 33–12, in the fifth week of the season. The Dolphins’ victory also eliminated the Cowboys from the playoffs for only the second time in the last 19 years.
As well as things worked out for the Giants, they also worked to the Dolphins’ benefit. They finished at 14–2, the best record in the American Conference, which means they will have a home-site advantage throughout the playoffs, leading to Super Bowl XIX January 20 in Palo Alto, California. The final moments were as stunning and sensational as in any game this season. The Cowboys scored twice in the first 23 minutes of the second half to tie the Dolphins, 14–14. From that point, the Dolphins took a lead of 21–14 with 2:31 left, on the second of three long touchdown passes from Dan Marino to Mark Clayton, a 39-yarder. With 1 minute 47 seconds left, the Cowboys tied the score again, 21–21, on a touchdown pass play of 66 yards on a deflection to Tony Hill that was reminiscent of Franco Harris’s “immaculate reception” against the Oakland Raiders in 1972. But the Dolphins were not finished. With 51 seconds left, Marino threw the last of his four touchdown passes, his 48th of the season, to Clayton on a play that covered 63 yards. Marino completed 23 of 40 passes for 340 yards, which gave him a season total of 5,084, a National Football League record. The previous record was Dan Fouts’s 4,802, set in 1981. Clayton also set an NFL record of 18 touchdown receptions in a season.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1176.79 (+0.88)
Born:
Shannon Woodward, American actress (“Raising Hope”, “Westworld”), Phoenix, Arizona.
Stu Pomeranz, MLB pitcher (Baltimore Orioles), in Dallas, Texas.
Derek Whitmore, NHL left wing (Buffalo Sabres), in Rochester, New York.
History Diaries 