The White House national security adviser said today that because of the great differences between them, the United States and the Soviet Union faced “a long road” in trying to achieve new arms control agreements. Looking to next week’s resumption of talks between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko in Geneva, Robert C. McFarlane, the security adviser, pledged that the United States would be “flexible and patient,” but he sought to deflate expectations of an early breakthrough. He said the Administration approached the talks “with a sense of determination, patience, and with hope for a productive outcome.” But he added, “We fully recognize that this is the beginning of a long and complicated process.” Although Mr. McFarlane and others cautioned reporters not to overdramatize the Geneva meeting, he nevertheless took a step that had the opposite effect and appeared to increase the importance of the talks on Monday and Tuesday. The main aim of the Geneva talks is to work out a framework for future substantive negotiations.
The ruling Politburo announced today it had made an “appropriate decision” on its position in the coming Soviet-American meeting on arms control. The announcement of the Politburo’s weekly meeting gave no details of the Kremlin’s position in the Geneva meeting between Secretary of State Shultz and Foreign Minister Gromyko. But a commentary in the Government newspaper, Izvestia, reflected a growing pessimism that has been expressed in the official press. The commentary said Washington’s insistence on its plan to test space weapons could make agreement difficult. “If the decision to put arms into space is definitive, then arms talks, if it is thought worth even beginning them, will not see a lively tempo from the Americans,” wrote the commentator, Valentin Falin.
The White House issued its first public report today on President Reagan’s proposal to develop a defense against nuclear missiles, arguing that the time had come to move away from reliance on weapons of mass destruction to deter a nuclear war. While not departing from testimony given before Congress this year by an array of Pentagon officials, the report seemed clearly aimed at the general public rather than at expert audiences. In the foreword, President Reagan wrote that “we must seek another means of deterring war. It is both militarily and morally necessary.” The report, using language that avoided technical intricacies, reviewed the background of what the Administration calls President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which has become popularly known as “Star Wars” since he announced it in a March 1983 speech. In his introduction, Mr. Reagan reiterated major themes of that speech, saying the basic assumptions behind trying to avoid nuclear war through mutual vulnerability “are being called into question.” New technologies and a Soviet military buildup have made the quest for defense against nuclear- armed missiles more urgent and success more possible, he said.
The number of Jews allowed to leave the Soviet Union dropped below 900 in 1984, the fewest in the 14 years that the Kremlin has permitted Jewish emigration, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry reported in New York. Exit visas were issued to 896 Soviet Jews in 1984, the agency said. Nearly 265,000 Jews have left the Soviet Union since 1970, more than 60% of them settling in Israel, the group said. Emigration dropped sharply from 1981 to 1984, according to the National Conference and the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry.
A former Polish security police lieutenant today described as “absurd” and “a long nightmare” his part in the kidnapping and killing of a pro-Solidarity priest, Waldemar Chmielewski, one of three police officers accused of direct involvement in the death of the priest, the Rev. Jerzy Popiełuszko, told of taking his pistol on the mission but leaving bullets behind because “of an aversion to small arms.” The policeman, stammering through a second day on the witness stand in his trial in the October killing, also described how, in view of passers-by, he and his two fellow defendants had changed the license plates on their car and wrapped rags around their nightsticks as they waited for the priest they were stalking to come out of church. He also recalled how, as he and his comrades debated what to do with the priest’s car, one of the men suggested that they have it painted and sell it, and told of a suggestion made during preparations for the abduction that the handcuffs to be used be bought at a flea market.
Terrorists, in renewed attacks on foreign installations, firebombed the residence of the United States consul in Frankfurt and a guardpost at an American Army airfield in Heidelberg, the police said today. No one was hurt in the attacks, but the police put damages at several thousand dollars. They were the ninth and 10th attacks on American, British and French targets since December 18 when a car bomb was used in an unsuccessful attack on NATO officers training school in the southern town of Oberammergau. The attack on the residence of Consul William Bodde Jr. was made at 10:20 PM while he was at home. The firebomb was thrown at the entrance, damaging the front. Seven suspects were reported to have fled on foot after leaving a typewritten letter in the front garden saying, “Our action is part of the anti-imperialist front in Western Europe.” The letter bore a five-pointed star, the symbol of the left-wing Red Army Faction.
The trial of former West German Economics Minister Otto Lambsdorff on corruption charges, which was scheduled to begin January 10, has been postponed indefinitely on legal grounds, the Bonn district court said today. A court spokesman attributed the delay to plans to add tax evasion to the list of charges being brought against Mr. Lambsdorff and a second defendant, Eberhard von Brauchitsch, a businessman. The two men, and a third defendant, Hans Friderichs, a banker, have been accused in connection with payments to Mr. Lambsorff’s Free Democratic Party between 1975 and 1980 from the Flick industrial concern in exchange for tax breaks on the proceeds of a sale of Flick holdings in the Daimler-Benz automobile company.
Twelve more East Germans left the West German Embassy in Prague for home to apply for regular exit visas to the West, Bonn diplomatic sources said. The sources, contacted in the Czechoslovak capital by telephone, said the 12 were taken by bus out of the embassy compound, leaving 28 still in the mission. Seventeen left Wednesday.
A secret airlifting of Ethiopian Jews to Israel was acknowledged by the Israeli Government for the first time. It said more than 10,000 had been rescued from drought-stricken Ethiopia in the last several years. They said the airlift was speeded up in the last year, when conditions in Ethiopia worsened and famine set in. Although publicly acknowledging the existence of the operation, Israeli officials declined to give any details about how the rescue operation had been organized and what other countries were involved. They said any discussion of those subjects remained under military censorship inside Israel.
Nurses noticed many bread crumbs around in a ward occupied by Ethiopian Jews airlifted to Israel. The reason: the newcomers were hiding part of each day’s bread portion under pillows and mattresses because they feared the nurses might run out of provisions at any moment.
Four gunmen kidnapped the Swiss charge d’affaires in Lebanon, dragging him from his car in mainly Muslim West Beirut. In Bern, a Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed the seizure of Eric Wehrli, who had been in charge in the absence of Ambassador Paul-Andre Ramseyer, on vacation in Switzerland. Meanwhile, a bomb exploded in an apartment above the offices of the French news agency Agence France-Presse in Beirut. There were no injuries.
Leaders of the opposition to Iraq’s President, Saddam Hussein, accused him today of imprisoning and killing hundreds of Iraqi soldiers.
China’s military will be trimmed to save money and free manpower to help build the country’s economy, Chief of Staff Yang Dezhi said. In an interview with the English-language newspaper China Daily, he said many officers and men will be demobilized from the 4-million-member armed forces, but he did not say how many. Peking’s top leaders have urged that the military be streamlined into a modern, mechanized armed force with younger officers. Last month, China announced the retirement of 40 senior officers.
A Superior Court judge in Quebec struck down the provision in the province’s language law that forced most businesses to have signs written only in French. Justice Pierre Boudreault backed Montreal-area merchants who challenged the provisions of the law on grounds that it violated the provincial human rights charter guaranteeing freedom of expression. Court rulings and public pressure over the years have removed many of the French-only statutes in the province.
At least eight babies — and perhaps as many as 23 — were killed by intentional drug overdoses at the prestigious Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, a Canadian appeals court judge said. Justice Samuel Grange, appointed to investigate 36 deaths in the hospital’s cardiac ward between June 30, 1980, and March 22, 1981, said it is preposterous to think the overdoses of the powerful heart drug digoxin were accidental. However, Grange’s inquiry was unable to solve the mystery of who might be responsible for the deaths.
A Canadian animal rights group that stole an experimental monkey infected with a deadly herpes virus said it may destroy the animal. Other animals stolen from the University of Western Ontario may be placed in private homes, it said. A group calling itself the Animal Liberation Front broke into the university’s laboratories on New Year’s Day and stole three cats and a 15-year-old rhesus monkey, said to be infected with herpes B virus, which can cause encephalitis in humans. A spokesman for the animal rights group said the monkey will be destroyed if it indeed has the herpes B virus.
A leader of Nicaragua’s political opposition urged today that Congress renew aid to anti- Government guerrillas, but also suggested that the United States should do a better job of controlling the rebels’ behavior in the field. The leader, Arturo Jose Cruz, who spoke at a news conference here, was asked about allegations that the American-backed rebels had committed atrocities against unarmed civilians. He responded by acknowledging that “tragic instances” had occurred. But he added that the American “donors of aid also have a responsibility to demand rational behavior on the part of the recipients.”
Red Cross rescue workers began the arduous ascent of a snow-covered Andean mountain today to the wreckage of an Eastern Airlines jetliner that crashed with 29 people aboard. A United States diplomat and five Bolivian mountain climbers began a separate effort, but bad weather kept them from approaching the Red Cross base camp at the foot of 21,000-foot Illimani Mountain. Officials said there was no hope anyone was alive aboard the Boeing 727, which went down Tuesday night. Eight Americans were among those aboard. Steve Seche, a spokesman at the American Embassy in La Paz, said Consul Royce Fichte and five experienced Bolivian climbers flew to Illimani Mountain today. They had planned to join Red Cross workers at a base camp at the Uranu Mine, 35 miles southeast of La Paz, before beginning their climb. But bad weather forced the helicopters carrying them to land at Coani, farther away from the crash site, Bolivian Air Force officials said.
President Reagan proposed today that the United States spend an extra $411 million on food aid for Africa, an amount that would bring total American Government assistance for famine victims to more than $1 billion. The President, in a statement issued by the White House, warned that “hunger and extreme malnutrition” threaten more than 14 million people in Africa. “Even with all our country has already done to feed the starving,” he said, “more – much more – must be accomplished by our nation in the months ahead to meet this challenge.” Mr. Reagan also proposed a “Food for Progress” program for Africa that he said would funnel United States aid specifically to countries willing to adopt modern, capitalistic agricultural techniques. He and other Reagan Administration officials have long maintained that Africa’s food problems are the result not only of one of the worst droughts in modern memory but also of socialist economies that emphasize industrial, urban development instead of strengthening food production and assuring that farmers are well-paid.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson urged Pope John Paul II today to visit South Africa and speak out against apartheid. Mr. Jackson, the 43-year-old Baptist minister who was a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination last year, said such a mission by the Pope could “have a profound impact in mobilizing the moral forces of the world.” Mr. Jackson spoke at a news conference here after a half-hour audience with the Pope, whom Mr. Jackson praised repeatedly for his work for human rights. Mr. Jackson said he had asked the Pope to focus the world’s attention on the problems of blacks in South Africa, much as he had mobilized world opinion on behalf of Solidarity, the banned trade union movement in Poland.
President Reagan today condemned the recent rash of bombings at abortion clinics around the country as “violent, anarchist activities” and pledged to see that the perpetrators were brought to justice. He did not order any change in the way the inquiry was being pursued. Mr. Reagan’s remarks, in a statement released by the White House, were his first on the series of attacks on legal abortion clinics in two years. The Administration has been faced with growing criticism from abortion rights and civil liberties groups who have accused Federal officials of not vigorously investigating the attacks. In its statement today, the White House added its voice to other Administration assurances that all the necessary steps were being taken to stop such incidents.
President Reagan meets with Attorney General William Smith to discuss Civil Rights.
President Reagan meets with representatives of the Departments of Justice, Interior, and Transportation to discuss budget cuts.
The deficit reduction plan that President Reagan is to send to Congress early next month will fall short of his stated goal of cutting the deficit to $100 billion in 1988, according to a statement made by David A. Stockman, the budget director, to Republican senators.
Federal deficits are growing faster than previously expected, according to David A. Stockman, the budget director. His report considerably dampened the normally festive mood of Congressional opening day. Leaders from both parties agreed their top priority would be to shape a legislative package aimed at reducing the budget deficits. The Administration warned the new Congress today that deficit projections were higher than anticipated a month ago, when President Reagan approved a deficit-reducing plan. The latest projections indicate the deficits over the next three years will be $8 billion to $11 billion larger than planners had expected. Despite the higher deficit projections, Administration officials said Mr. Reagan did not intend to change his budget plan, which he will submit to Congress next month. This means he will fall short of his goal of reducing the deficit, now projected to top $200 billion in 1985, to about $100 billion in 1988. In December Mr. Reagan set a goal of reducing the deficit to $165 billion in 1986, $136 billion in 1987 and $98 billion in 1988. But according to an analysis today by Mr. Reagan’s budget director, the deficit would be trimmed to only $178 billion in 1986, $167 billion in 1987 and $139 billion in 1988.
Michael K. Deaver, President Reagan’s deputy chief of staff and his closest personal adviser, will resign in the spring, the White House announced today. Mr. Deaver, a member of Mr. Reagan’s inner circle for nearly two decades, is expected to take a job in public relations here. According to a statement issued by Mr. Reagan, Mr. Deaver will leave “in the general time frame of March to May, 1985.” “Much of the success we’ve enjoyed in the first term is directly attributable to him,” the President said. “His shoes will be difficult to fill.”
Bernhard Hugo Goetz was returned to Manhattan from Concord, New Hampshire, under stringent security and charged with attempted murder in the shooting of four teen-agers on an IRT subway train. Mr. Goetz was held in $50,000 bail and placed in custody at Rikers Island.
The condition of William J. Schroeder, the artificial heart recipient, was changed today to satisfactory for the first time since he suffered three strokes December 13, a spokesman said. Mr. Schroeder demonstrated his improvement by taking his first unassisted walk in a hall at Humana Hospital-Audubon Wednesday, said Linda Broaddus. She said that as he was returning from a physical therapy session he got off the elvator, handed the walker he had been using to a nurse and walked unaided to his room. Mr. Schroeder, 52 years old, of Jasper, Ind., has been toning his muscles in daily physical therapy sessions and had been taking short walks with help. Mr. Schroeder was expected to continue his daily program of speech, physical and occupational therapy. Like many stroke victims he has suffered depression, but recently has been “joking some” with Dr. William DeVries, who implanted the Jarvik-7 heart in Mr. Schroeder’s chest November 25, Miss Broaddus said.
Despite a plank in the Republican platform calling for abolition of the Energy Department, the Reagan Administration is not renewing a once-failed attempt to combine it with another agency, officials said. Reports that White House officials were taking a fresh look at combining the Interior and Energy departments into a new Department of Natural Resources after Interior Secretary William P. Clark’s surprise decision to resign were dismissed as “speculation” by Deputy Energy Secretary Danny Boggs.
The jury in retired General William C. Westmoreland’s $120-million libel suit against CBS in federal court in New York got its first look at letters from an American officer in Vietnam complaining that military leaders were telling “Gargantuan falsehoods.” The letters, written in 1968 by Commander James Meacham and since disavowed, told of “outright falsification on the very highest levels” in reports about the strength of communist forces.
Democratic National Chairman Charles T. Manatt has endorsed another Californian, former state party chairman Nancy Pelosi, to succeed Manatt when his term ends February 1. In a letter to national committee members, Manatt called Pelosi’s background as a fund-raiser and party supporter “unsurpassed.”
Mayor W. Wilson Goode says Philadelphia will enter the next century with a “competitive edge” over other Northeastern cities if it builds on the accomplishments of his first year in office. Mr. Goode, in the annual “State of the City” address at City Hall Wednesday, said his first year as Mayor had “created a new momentum to move us toward 1990 and into the 21st century.” Mr. Goode cited such accomplishments as the creation of 23,100 new jobs in Philadelphia and $2.5 billion in proposed new commercial construction. But Philadelphia’s first black Mayor warned that the city would face a $500 million shortfall by the end of the decade if revenues and expenditures continue at current levels.
A 28-year-old Boston fire enthusiast who the authorities said led a band of fire buffs on a 14-month arson spree was sentenced today to up to 60 years in Federal and state prisons for his conviction on multiple charges. “These were either acts of terrorism or sheer malice, I don’t know which,” said Federal District Judge Rya Zobel in sentencing the man, Donald F. Stackpole, of Scituate, to 40 years in Federal prison. Mr. Stackpole, who often arrived at fires in a red station wagon and dressed as a fire chief, was convicted in Federal court November 30 on five arson counts and 12 related charges. Earlier in the day, he pleaded guilty in Suffolk Superior Court to six additional state counts of arson and was sentenced to a term of 19 to 20 years at the Walpole state prison. The officials said 282 people, including 65 firefighters, were injured in more than 200 fires around Boston in 1982 and 1983, causing an estimated $22 million in property damage. Mr. Stackpole was among seven people indicted in the Federal case. At least four others have pleaded guilty.
David Dene Martin, a former church youth counselor who killed his wife’s lover and three other persons, was executed in Louisiana’s electric chair at the prison in Angola. Martin, 32, was electrocuted for gunning down two men and two women in 1977, including a nightclub owner who had had an affair with the condemned man’s wife. In a plea for a reprieve before the Louisiana Pardon Board, he blamed the shootings on use of the drug PCP and personal tragedies.
Miami Police Chief Herbert Breslow, 52, announced that he and Assistant Chief Robert Warshaw are resigning. They had come under fire from City Commissioner Joe Carollo a year after the chief’s predecessor was abruptly fired. Carollo is the leader of an emerging commission majority that deposed City Manager Howard Gary in October. Gary, who fired former Police Chief Kenneth Harms in January, 1984, was a close associate of Breslow and Warshaw.
A freak snowstorm struck South Texas, causing schools and some businesses to close and sending cars skidding into each other and into ditches. The snowstorm was blamed for at least four deaths and hundreds of traffic accidents as it marched across the state and northeastward into Louisiana and Mississippi. Houston school officials kept 177,000 students home.
Scientists reported today that they had found the virus suspected of causing acquired immune deficiency syndrome in the brains of AIDS victims who suffered memory loss, impaired concentration and other signs of dementia. The discovery came as a surprise because the HTLV-3 virus, believed to cause AIDS, was previously known to attack mainly cells of the body’s disease-fighting immune system, not brain cells, said Dr. George Shaw, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute tumor cell biology laboratory. HTLV-3 attacks T-cells, white blood cells that fight disease, leaving AIDS victims open to a variety of infections and rare cancers, according to most researchers. As of November 26, 1984, 6,993 cases of AIDS had been reported. Of those, 3,342 died. “I think it’s safe to say that this is the first time that the HTLV-3 virus has ever been demonstrated to be present within the brain of humans,” said Dr. Shaw, a principal author of the report in the journal Science. “The importance of that is that there are a number of brain disorders, or central nervous system abnormalities, that patients with AIDS have been found to get, but many of those problems have not been explainable to date by trying to attribute them to tumors or known infections and so on and so forth.”
“Striking similarities” have been found between the virus believed to cause AIDS and one that infects sheep, a development that could indicate the deadly human disease originated in animals and that developing a vaccine could be difficult, scientists said in a report to be published in the journal Science. It said studies of the virus believed to cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome show that it is indistinguishable from animal disease agents called lentiviruses.
A Soviet physicist has won asylum in the United States, State Department officials said. The scientist, Artem Kulikov, was the chief engineer of the Leningrad Institute of Nuclear Physics. The officials said that Mr. Kulikov had requested asylum as he and a group of other Soviet scientists who had participated in an exchange program at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago were preparing to board an airliner at O’Hare Airport.
The world’s largest optical telescope will be built atop Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano in Hawaii. The William M. Keck Foundation has agreed to provide $70 million for construction and operation of the new instrument.
Leontyne Price makes her final operatic appearance in a televised performance of “Aida” at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1189.82.
Born:
Evan Moore, NFL wide receiver (Cleveland Browns, Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles), in Brea, California.
Shawn Belle, Canadian NHL defenseman (Minnesota Wild, Montreal Canadiens, Edmonton Oilers, Colorado Avalanche), in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Linas Kleiza, Lithuanian NBA small forward and power forward (Denver Nuggets, Toronto Raptors), in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Noelle Quinn, WNBA guard (WNBA Champions-Storm, 2018; Minnesota Lynx, Los Angeles Sparks, Washington Mystics, Seattle Storm, Phoenix Mercury), in Los Angeles, California.
Died:
Lucien Cailliet, 93, French-American composer, conductor and teacher (Philadelphia Orchestra, 1919-1937).
History Diaries 