The Soviet Foreign Minister said Soviet-American negotiations on nuclear missiles would be impossible if they were separated from talks on space weapons. In a Soviet television interview that followed his meeting in Geneva last week with Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko rejected any effort by Washington to shift emphasis in future negotiations from outer space to strategic and medium-range missiles. “Without reaching an accord, simultaneous and interrelated in all three directions, there can be no advancement in the realization of what was agreed upon in Geneva,” Mr. Gromyko said. “One would like that fewer frivolous statements of this kind come from the United States of America.” Mr. Gromyko also assailed Washington’s proposal to continue research into a space-based missile defense system, calling it a “devious and, generally speaking, perfidious strategem.”
“Of course,” Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko said today, “we did not bang our fists on the table and did not even fling eyeglasses on the table.” But he said that his meeting last week in Geneva with Secretary of State George P. Shultz was “complicated, if not tense,” and that the Soviet side found the need to speak sharply to the Americans more than once to bring them into line. In a televised question-and-answer session with four Soviet journalists, Mr. Gromyko took an aggressive tone toward the United States, as if to assure viewers that their leaders had not backed down in returning to arms talks with the Americans, and had the measure of their adversary now that they had returned. “We know the signature of the American Administration,” he said at one point, “and we know the situation in the United States of America.”
In linking the success of the new arms control negotiations to a willingness in Washington to curb the space weapons program, Moscow appears to be trying to persuade both the Administration and American public opinion. In a way, the airing of differences on Soviet and American television today by top officials on both sides represents public posturing that is to be expected in advance of actual negotiations. But the intensity of the argument over the long- range American plan for research into antimissile defenses suggests that this initial debate will persist well into the negotiations themselves, and into debates on Capitol Hill. The Soviet position was laid out by Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, who said in an unusual appearance on Soviet television that Moscow would be willing to negotiate on deep cuts in offensive missiles and bombers if the United States would agree to forgo the $26 billion research program known popularly as “Star Wars.” His message is evidently meant to be taken seriously by Congress, which is being asked for large amounts of money for programs that are now only concepts.
A Libyan diplomat was slain in Rome. A caller to The Associated Press office in London took responsibility in the name of a group called Al Borkan, which in Arabic means “The Volcano.” The diplomat, identified as Farag Omar Mahkyoun, 31 years old, was the head of the press office at the Libyan Embassy. He fired at his attackers before collapsing.
The United States informed Israel and Egypt last week that Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Andrei A. Gromyko, the Soviet Foreign Minister, agreed to hold Soviet-American discussions on the Middle East, diplomatic sources said today. R. Mark Palmer, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, carried the message from Geneva to Egypt and Israel.
An Israeli who threw a hand grenade at peace marchers opposed to the war in Lebanon, killing one and wounding nine, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Yonah Avrushmi, 27, carried out the attack during a Peace Now rally outside the prime minister’s office in February, 1983. The demonstrators were demanding the resignation of then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and an end to the war. The explosion killed peace activist Emil Grunzweig, and it highlighted the bitter division among Israelis over the June, 1982, invasion and subsequent costly occupation of Lebanon.
A phased withdrawal from Lebanon proposed by the Israeli Defense Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was discussed by the Cabinet, which delayed a final decision, probably until Monday, a Cabinet source said. Mr. Rabin’s proposal reportedly calls for an initial Israeli withdrawal from the Awali River line in western Lebanon to a new line between the Litani and Zahrani Rivers, about 13 miles north of the international border, The new line would be just beyond the range of Soviet-made Kaytusha rockets, which have been used by Palestinian and Lebanese guerrilla organizations to strike at northern Israel.
The leader of a fundamentalist Muslim militia in northern Lebanon said the United States will be attacked on its own territory in the next few days. Sheik Said Shaban, head of Tawhid (the Islamic Unification Movement), a Sunni militia based in Tripoli that is allied with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, told a rally: “America will, in the next few days, witness operations against it in its own country to avenge the people of south Lebanon and Palestine. The Islamic tide … has begun to knock at the White House door, which reinforces itself with concrete obstacles for fear of Islamic attacks.”
Lebanese Premier Rashid Karami said his nation’s army, having been deployed south of Beirut along the coastal road, will move north from the capital toward the port of Tripoli in a few days. Karami said all roadblocks along the 40-mile road between Beirut and Tripoli will first be removed. Meanwhile, the Christian Falangist radio said Druze forces shelled army positions in the mountains near Beirut, including the long-fought-over village of Souq el Gharb overlooking the presidential palace. The Druze radio said its own residential areas came under army artillery attacks.
The Bangladeshi Government said 27 people were killed today when three cars of a passenger train caught fire. Witnesses and a station master said the toll could reach 150 because many people had jumped from the moving train. Abubkaer Khan, a passenger whose 14-year-old son was among many reported missing, said his coach had caught fire after the Samanta Express left Puradaha and had burned for more than an hour before the train stopped. Officials attributed the fire to a short circuit. They said the engineer and four other rail workers had been suspended, and an inquiry was ordered.
Cambodian Khmer Rouge guerrillas attacked Vietnamese occupation troops and the two sides traded artillery and mortar fire for three hours, according to guerrilla reports. The reports, which could not be independently confirmed, said the fighting occurred 7½ miles inside Cambodia near Aranyaprathet, a major Thai border town. No casualty figures were given. The Khmer Rouge is the largest of three guerrilla groups fighting to drive 160,000 Vietnamese troops out of Cambodia.
Japan’s Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone left tonight for a weeklong trip to the South Pacific that is likely to underline that region’s concerns about Japan’s policies on trade and dumping of nuclear waste. All four countries on Mr. Nakasone’s tour — Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji — oppose Japan’s plans to drop a large amount of “low level” nuclear waste into the Pacific. The material is not highly radioactive spent fuel, which is sent to Europe for reprocessing, but rather items such as clothing exposed to radiation.
The authorities conducted a second autopsy on the body of a Melanesian militant today after his family charged that he was shot in the back by the police during rioting here. The family demanded the new autopsy after officials said the first showed that the militant, Eloi Machoro, had been shot in the shoulder from the front. The results of the second autopsy were not immediately available. Noumea was tense today after a violent 24 hours in which whites rioted over the killing Friday of Yves Tual, 17-year-old son of a white farmer. Mr. Machoro, a leader of a campaign by indigenous Melanesian Kanakas for the territory’s independence from France, was killed Saturday, and a state of emergency was declared. France announced it was sending 1,000 more military policemen here.
Two U.S. congressmen are meeting with Cuban officials in Havana to explore the normalization of relations between the countries, the official Cuban news agency, Prensa Latina, reported. Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Arkansas) and Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) met with Foreign Trade Minister Ricardo Cabrisas and Education Minister Jose Ramon Fernandez for talks focusing on “marine culture, fishing and agriculture,” the agency reported. Alexander said he and Leach hope to meet with Cuban President Fidel Castro. The U.S. government severed trade relations with Cuba in 1960 and diplomatic relations a year later.
Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, left for home today after a three-day visit to Nicaragua. Mr. Castro’s departure was not announced until several hours after he left. During a speech Friday at a sugar mill that Cuba helped build at Malacatoya, he referred to the suddenness with which he often appears and departs.
A House Intelligence Committee report has concluded that the United States intelligence agencies operating in El Salvador “have not conducted any of their activities in such a way as to directly encourage or support” the activities of right-wing death squads. The report, completed this month, came in response to charges in Congress that Central Intelligance Agency officers and others may have trained, organized, financed or advised Salvadoran security forces that had engaged in death squad activities.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today that American foreign aid money had not been diverted to support the Nicaraguan rebels. Mr. Shultz suggested, however, that recipients of American aid might be using their own money to aid the rebels, who are fighting Nicaragua’s leftist Government.
Brazil’s return to full democracy will take a big step tomorrow when the Electoral College chooses the country’s first civilian President since the army seized power in 1964. The opposition candidate, Tancredo Neves, a 74-year-old moderate who is backed by a broad political and economic alliance, is strongly favored to defeat the governing party’s nominee, Paulo Salim Maluf, a 53-year-old businessman-turned-politician. The outcome of the election was virtually decided six months ago when key Government supporters defected to Mr. Neves’s camp, but it was not confirmed until November, when the military Government indicated that it would accept an opposition victory. If the succession proceeds smoothly, Brazil, after setting a regional trend toward military takeovers in the early 1960’s, will become the ninth Latin American country to move to civilian rule since 1980.
An express train derails in Ethiopia, killing at least 428. An express travelling train from Dire Dawa to Addis Ababa on the rail line from Djibouti derailed at Awash, killing 428 and injuring some 500 more.
The Reagan Administration, in what is viewed as a major change in policy, will seek congressional approval for $1 million in military aid to Mozambique, a State Department official said. Robert S. Gelbard of the department’s Bureau of African Affairs said the aid request indicates a desire to lessen Mozambique’s reliance on Soviet assistance. “We won’t replace the Soviets…but we hope to encourage a policy of real nonalignment,” Gelbard said. An American military official, who requested anonymity, said the aid would provide “non-lethal” equipment such as communications gear to the Marxist state.
A demonstration by radical blacks forced Senator Edward M. Kennedy to cancel plans for a major speech in Soweto, the black township in South Africa, that was to have been the climax of a weeklong visit. Several thousand people gathered in the Regina Mundi Cathedral to hear him, but about 100 demonstrators from the radical Azanian People’s Organization marched toward the altar shouting “No more Kennedy!”.
On the eve of his inauguration for a second term, President Reagan is presiding over an Administration with numerous high- level vacancies in several departments. Major policy moves are lagging on the eve of President Reagan’s second inauguration because of departmental personnel vacancies. Most of the vacancies are at the assistant secretary level, where policy decisions are carried out. Conservatives at the White House and outside Government have joined liberal critics of the Administration in asserting that the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Housing and Urban Development appear to be drifting while positions remained unfilled. But spokesmen for the agencies contend that essential functions are continuing. There are at least 20 vacancies in positions at the level of assistant secretary or higher in the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Education and Justice. That does not count several officials who have announced plans to resign, but who will continue on for a few more weeks.
President Reagan returns to the White House from the weekend at Camp David.
Democrats say they will let Republicans in Congress take the lead in formulating the budget. They acknowledged this strategy could hurt their efforts to re-establish their party’s political leadership, but they say the deficit is such a serious problem that there is no alternative to cooperating with the Republicans. They argue that the White House and Senate Republicans have the responsibility to make the first attempt to cut the budget and reduce the deficit. Bob Dole of Kansas, the Senate majority leader, is looking to 1986, when 22 Senate Republicans are up for re-election. He says he wants to cut the deficit now to put the economy in the best possible shape and help Republicans keep control of the Senate.
Missouri has turned Republican. The traditionally Democratic state will install a new Governor today, John D. Ashcroft, a Republican, and it will be the first time since 1928 that a Republican Governor has succeeded another Republican. A Democrat will hold only one of the six statewide posts. Ashcroft is described as “a straight arrow” by commentators and friends alike. To him a white shirt is “the sign of a civilized man,” Mr. Ashcroft says. He eschews alcohol, tobacco, dancing, gambling and profanity. He writes religious songs that he and a friend, Judge Max E. Bacon, of Springfield, perform before church groups.
The U.S. surgeon general predicts that “militant nonsmokers” will lead the nation to a smoke-free society by the year 2000. “Smoking is finally becoming, in many places, socially unacceptable,” Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop said. A campaign to warn people about the 340,000 smoke-related deaths per year is having a slow but noticeable effect, Koop told members of the Hawaii Pacific Division of the American Cancer Society.
A Texas Ranger raced through a hail of gunfire near Saltillo, Texas, to rescue a businessman’s 13-year-old daughter, who had been held for $100,000 ransom after gunmen forced a car off a country road and kidnaped her Friday, authorities said. “Thank God, my baby’s home,” said Don McNiel, 44. Amy McNiel was freed unharmed after a 100-m.p.h. chase during which police and kidnap suspects traded gunfire and two suspects were wounded, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety said.
Militant groups in Pittsburgh that have been disrupting services at Presbyterian and Lutheran churches in nearby Clairton since last spring to protest unemployment picketed a Roman Catholic church for the first time on Sunday. About four dozen supporters of the Denominational Ministry Strategy and the Network to Save the Mon-Ohio Valley handed out flyers outside St. Paul’s Cathedral before 11 AM Mass, then quietly reboarded a school bus and left.
New Orleans police have announced, after questioning Henry Lee Lucas, a convicted mass murderer, that they have linked him to five killings in this area. Mr. Lucas, who says he killed 360 people while drifting from 1975 to 1983, was involved in three murders in New Orleans and two in Jefferson, Louisiana, the authorities said. He was questioned here but was returned to jail in Georgetown, Texas, Saturday. Mr. Lucas has been sentenced to death and four life terms in Texas and is wanted for questioning in 15 states.
Five Sacramento, California, area men have been arrested and charged with 169 counts of sexual molestation and abuse of nine children. The cases date from 1982 and involve four children who had been left in the care of one suspect, and five of their playmates, the authorities said. Arthur Gary Dill, 33 years old, who authorities called the ringleader, surrendered near San Jose on Friday. He is charged with 64 counts of child molestation and abuse. His roommate, John Paul Holman, 36, was charged with 20 counts. Rolando Arcon Cuevas of Citrus Heights, 36, was arrested on 15 counts of child molestation; Alan Patrick Arbuckle of Sacramento, 29, on 32 counts, and Veryl Lee Baker of Citrus Heights, 59, on 38 counts.
Strip miners have destroyed at least 16,000 historic or archaeologIcal sites over the last four years because the Interior Department has not enforced a law protecting the sites, NBC News reported. The department’s Office of Surface Mining has refused to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which would have protected the 10,000 historic and 6,000 archeological sites, NBC said. J. Rodney Little, president of the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, told NBC that the sites range from “significant frontier log cabins to 18th-Century historic houses.”
College freshmen are more materialistic than ever but still tend to be politically liberal on issues such as disarmament, women’s rights and school integration, according to an annual survey. The 19th annual study of freshman attitudes was jointly conducted by UCLA and the American Council on Education, a Washington-based higher education lobbying organization. Nearly 68% said a “very important” reason for attending college was “to be able to make more money” — an increase from 66.7% last year and considerably higher than the 49.9% in 1971.
Cardiovascular disease is still by far the most common cause of death in the United States, killing almost 1 million annually in spite of advances in research and treatment, the American Heart Assn. says. In its annual “Heart Facts” study, the association said an average of 4,100 Americans suffer heart attacks every day and predicted that about 550,000 of the 1.5 million Americans who have heart attacks this year will die — 350,000 of them before they reach a hospital. The study estimates the annual cost of cardiovascular illness at $72.1 billion for 1985. Much of that cost will be for hospital and nursing home services — $43.7 billion.
About 50 Massachusetts animal rights activists demonstrated today against a plan to shoot 65 deer at a reservation. The reservation’s trustees say the plan is necessary to save the rest of the herd from starving this winter. “The deer are not starving,” said Michael Kane of Friends of Animals over a megaphone as the protesters milled about Ipswich’s snow-covered town green at the rally. Mr. Kane and other protesters said officials overseeing Crane Memorial Reservation and Wildlife Refuge should allow the 150-deer herd to thin naturally. The seaside preserve 30 miles north of Boston and 70 other private properties across Massachusetts are overseen by a group called Trustees of Reservations. A member of the group said today that it had not changed its plans to hire a sharpshooter to thin the herd.
United Cerebral Palsy Inc.’s 22-hour-long “Weekend With the Stars” national telethon hosted by television actor John Ritter raised more than $17 million nationally. A spokesman said the figure included pledges made by viewers in nearly 100 cities and gifts made before the broadcast began. Last year the on-air pledges and advance gifts exceeded $14 million and the charity collected on 92% of the sum. In Los Angeles, the telecast on KTTV produced pledges of $760,165, up from $715,000 last year.
Confirmed cases of Lyme disease — a tick-borne infection that can cause recurring arthritis — set a record last year in New York State, health officials said. They said 434 cases had been confirmed in 1984, mainly in Westchester and Putnam Counties and Long Island.
Computer science, a field in which there was no major at most colleges and universities before the 1970’s, is fast becoming one of the most popular majors as enrollments grow so rapidly that some schools must limit admissions. The situation is epitomized in Boston, where Northeastern University created a College of Computer Science in 1982 with 230 students that now has an enrollment of 909. At the nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one-third of all undergraduates with declared majors have chosen the department of electrical engineering and computer science. Computer science, with its lure of plentiful jobs and the possibility of youthful entrepreneurship, is accounting for an ever larger portion of the enrollment at a time that overall enrollment is no longer growing. “These are young people who have been brought up on video games, and there is a romance in computers for them,” said Paul M. Kalaghan, dean of the College of Computer Science at Northeastern. “It is a chance to spend your life working with devices smarter than you are and, yet, have control over them. It’s like carrying a six-gun on the old frontier.”
13.2 inches of snow in San Antonio paralyzed the normally sunny city. “In the last 100 years no snowfall has ever come close to this event,” the National Weather Service said of the storm that covered south, central and west Texas. A winter storm described as the worst in southern Texas in a century left San Antonio staggering under more than a foot of snow today, virtually paralyzing a city more accustomed to sun. Meanwhile, three weather-related deaths were reported, one in Louisiana and two in Michigan.
99-year-old Otto Bucher from Switzerland becomes the oldest man to record a hole-in-one at Spanish GC La Manga’s 130-yard 12th hole.
23rd Tennis Fed Cup: Czech beats USA in Nagoya, Japan (2-1).
John McEnroe repeats previous year’s result with a 7–5, 6–0, 6–4 win over Ivan Lendl to claim back-to-back season-ending ATP Masters Grand Prix tennis titles at Madison Square Garden, New York.
Playing in his 436th career game, Edmonton center Wayne Gretzky scores his 400th career NHL goal and adds 2 assists in a 5-4 Oilers’ win over the Sabres in Buffalo.
Born:
Jeremy Colliton, Canadian NHL centre (New York Islanders), in Blackie, Alberta, Canada.
Died:
Adam Walsh, 83, American College Football Hall of Fame center and coach (Notre Dame; Bowdoin).
Carol Wayne, 42, Johnny Carson’s teatime movie hostess. Wayne vacationed at the Las Hadas Resort in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, with companion Edward Durston, a car salesman. After an argument, Wayne reportedly took a walk on the beach. Three days later, a local fisherman found Wayne’s body in a shallow bay. An autopsy performed in Mexico revealed no signs of alcohol or other drugs in her body, and her death was ruled “accidental.”
[Ed: Honey, your brother has a better shot with him.]
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