Max M. Kampelman, newly appointed chief negotiator at the coming U.S.-Soviet arms control talks, denounced the Soviet Union in an article but said the superpowers must learn to live together. “The Soviet Union is governed by a political and military elite engaged in a deliberate program to intimidate and frighten the world,” Kampelman wrote in the February issue of the Bulletin of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. “The U.S.S.R. is a threat to our values and our security,” he wrote. “But we share the same globe. We must learn to live together. We cannot blow the Soviet Union away without blowing ourselves away.”
The club used to beat the Rev. Jerzy Popieluszko was displayed here in the courthouse today as material from the autopsy of the pro-Solidarity priest was reported at the trial of four security policemen charged with his murder. Maria Byrdy, a 75-year-old pathologist, told the court that the club, admittedly wielded by the key defendant, former Captain Grzegorz Piotrowski, had been used to hit the 37-year-old priest at least 13 times on the night of October 19, the day he was abducted and slain. Dr. Byrdy confirmed that the priest had died of suffocation, but she emphasized that all his injuries from being beaten, gagged and tied led cumulatively to his death. Her testimony appeared to damage the defense strategy of Mr. Piotrowski. In saying he had not tied the noose or placed gags on the priest’s mouth, he seemed to imply that it was his co-defendants, Leszek Pękala and Waldemar Chmielewski, who were to blame for the suffocation and death.
President Reagan meets with Minister of Defense of the Italian Republic, and former Prime Minister, Giovanni Spadolini to discuss American policies in Europe.
The Government of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou announced today that Greece would no longer take part in the NATO Defense College. The statement, made in Mr. Papandreou’s name by the Socialist Government’s spokesman, Dimitri Maroudas, followed the withdrawal last week of the Greek students and instructors attending the current session. Greece acted to protest a classroom exercise based on a hypothetical situation in which the Greek Army in a coup seized control from a left-wing government. Mr. Maroudas also made official today earlier reports that Mr. Papandreou would visit the Soviet Union in the first half of February. A source at NATO headquarters in Brussels said by telephone that the fictitious exercise, drawn up by an American academic, had been used six years without Greek objections.
The last Nazi war criminal held by Italy was freed from prison five months ahead of schedule. The prisoner, Walter Reder, a former major in the SS, was immediately flown to Austria, where he was greeted by that country’s Defense Minister. Mr. Reder was convicted in 1951 of responsibility in the slaying of about 600 people near Bologna in 1944.
The Lebanese-Israeli troop withdrawal talks were suspended today for the second time this month. The talks broke up after negotiators failed to decide whether they should discuss security arrangements or a pullback timetable. “The delegations maintained their earlier positions,” said a United Nations spokesman, Timur Goksel, at the end of the 14th session of the United Nations-sponsored negotiations. He added that no date had been set for another round of talks.
A Sri Lankan court ordered the release of 17 Indian fishermen, and the nation’s foreign minister announced that India is returning a Sri Lankan patrol boat and its seven-member crew. The 17 men have been held for nearly three months on charges of poaching in Sri Lankan waters. Foreign Minister A.C.S. Hameed said the patrol boat and its crew will be returned to Colombo. The Indian navy seized the boat and crew January 11, saying the vessel fired on fishermen in India’s territorial waters.
Cambodian guerrillas attacked a Vietnamese base that guards Hanoi’s supply line to the Thai-Cambodian border, Thai military sources said. About 100 Khmer Rouge guerrillas took part in the attack on the Vietnamese base at Poh Sam Ton, 10 miles south of Aranyaprathet, a border town 120 miles east of Bangkok, the sources said. Western diplomats said they regarded it as a preemptive strike.
Huỳnh Quốc Tuấn, his rumpled shirt too big for his small frame, was barefoot and trembling this morning when Thailand’s top military chiefs paraded him before the press. A week ago this 18-year-old plumber from Saigon who did not want to be a soldier, came over Ampil’s Bridge No. 3 and deserted the Vietnamese Army. According to Thai authorities, more than 30 of Mr. Tuấn’s fellow soldiers have done the same since early January, when the Vietnamese took the Ampil border camp, the headquarters of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front. The Thais say the defections have become regular; two more were recorded Wednesday.
The State Department said it strongly opposes privately organized raids into Laos in search of Americans still missing from the Indochina war. Such missions are illegal, and the spoiling of crash sites jeopardizes future identification of remains, spokesman Bernard Kalb said. He said the statement was prompted by recent reports that such forays might be attempted.
South Korea appeared to disavow a threat by a Seoul official to imprison opposition leader Kim Dae Jung if he returned from exile in the United States next month. The South Korean Embassy in Washington disavowed a reported statement by Choi Chang Yoon, an aide to South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan, that exiled opposition leader Kim Dae Jung will be imprisoned upon his return to South Korea from the United States next month. However, embassy spokesman Park Shanil declined to say whether Kim will be imprisoned, asserting. “You will know when he returns.” Kim was allowed to come to the United States for medical treatment in December, 1982, after serving 22 years of a 20-year sentence for sedition.
A judge today ordered the arrest of the chief of the armed forces and 25 other men in connection with the assassination of the opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. in 1983. The judge also pledged that the government court would try the case impartially. The special three-judge court that will try the 26 men was created in June 1978, during a period of martial law, by a decree of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The Chief of Staff of the armed forces, General Fabian C. Ver, is a lifelong friend of Mr. Marcos. Public concern has been expressed about the independence of the government judicial system in this politically sensitive case, in which the 26 men were formally charged Wednesday. But Justice Manuel Pamaran, head of the three-judge court, said today: “The law has no sex, no relatives, no political color. I am very confident that we can dispense justice.”
France’s Socialist government won final approval from Parliament for an extension of the state of emergency in New Caledonia until June 30. The government used its absolute majority in the National Assembly to push through a bill renewing the emergency after the opposition-controlled Senate tried to limit the extension to a month. The South Pacific territory has been plagued by violence triggered by independence-seeking Kanaks, Melanesians related to Australia’s aborigines.
Officials of the United States and Canada said today that the two countries were near an agreement on a $1.2 billion project to modernize an Arctic network of radar stations for the defense of North America against a Soviet attack. United States Air Force officials said the present system, known as the Distant Early Warning, or DEW, line, had fallen into disrepair since it was built in the mid-1950’s, and could now be penetrated by bombers or cruise missiles. A Canadian official said an accord might be ready for signature when President Reagan visits Canada in March. However, a Pentagon official said that unspecified “subsidiary” matters might delay completion and that, in any event, such a technical pact might be signed by defense officials rather than the heads of government.
Disturbances broke out in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo today in response to a round of price increases, but the police said they had brought the situation under control quickly. Protesters in a slum section of the city set a delivery truck ablaze and burned piles of tires in the streets, and the police said some arrests were made but gave no number.
A “new danger” in Central America, according to President Reagan, is arising from support for Nicaragua from Iran, Libya, and the P.L.O. Mr. Reagan called support for the rebel forces seeking to oust the Marxist Government “an act of self-defense.” “The subversion we are talking about violates international law. The Organization of American States, in the past, has enacted sanctions against Cuba for such aggression.” Mr. Reagan has previously contended that Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and the P.L.O. were assisting the Sandinistas, but has not included Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian leader, in the charge.
Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister, Felipe González, said he was puzzled by Washington’s decision to break off talks with Nicaragua. Mr. González said that suspension of the talks had come at a “moment of clear efforts of flexibility on Nicaragua’s part” and that Washington might be missing a “historic opportunity.” The Spanish leader said it was still unclear to him whether the suspension was merely a tactical move.
There were no survivors of the crash of a U.S. Air Force transport plane into the Caribbean off the northern coast of Honduras, the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa confirmed. Twenty-one American servicemen, including two lieutenant colonels, died in the crash of the C-130. Bad weather hampered the search for bodies and wreckage about 500 yards offshore near Puerto Trujillo, where the cargo plane was scheduled to land.
Three rival guerrilla groups seeking to free Eritrea from Ethiopia announced today that they were joining forces in their 22- year-old struggle. By uniting, the three groups claim to be equal in military strength to the largest rebel band, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front.
Anti-government rebels in Mozambique were reported today to have blown up a bridge in the south of the country, severing rail links between the capital, Maputo, and South Africa. South Africa is Mozambique’s main trading partner and nominally a major ally against the insurgents. The attack on Wednesday, reported by the official South African radio, followed sabotage on Tuesday of a power line running from South Africa to Maputo and an ambush last week of two Johannesburg-based Britons who were killed on a highway.
The first secret space shuttle (Discovery) mission (STS-51-C) took off from Cape Canaveral, carrying American astronauts on a mission dedicated exclusively to highly classified military objectives. NASA reported that a satellite (USA-8) was deployed during the mission using an Inertial Upper Stage booster was deployed and met mission objectives. At just over three days, the mission was shorter in duration than most civilian missions and was the shortest of Discovery’s career. It was the first dedicated to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), and most information about it remains classified. For the first time, NASA did not provide pre-launch commentary to the public until nine minutes before liftoff. The U.S. Air Force only stated that the shuttle successfully launched its payload with an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) on the mission’s seventh orbit. It is believed that the payload was a Magnum SIGINT satellite into geosynchronous orbit.
Almost exactly a year after STS-51-C, Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed with all hands on board during the STS-51-L mission including Ellison Onizuka, a crew member on both flights. As part of the investigation into the disaster, it was reported to the Rogers Commission that during the launch of STS-51-C, the worst Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) blow-by effects of any mission prior to STS-51-L occurred, indicating conclusively that the Viton O-rings were not sufficiently sealing the hot gases inside the combustion chambers of the SRBs while firing. After they were recovered post-flight, the O-rings in both the right and left SRBs showed some degree of charring, but analysis of the center field joint of the right SRB showed an unprecedented penetration of the primary O-ring and heavy charring on the secondary O-ring.
President Reagan attends a Cabinet Council meeting to discuss how to make American industry more competitive.
Budget spending cuts and an overhaul of the tax system will be pressed by President Reagan in a plan to “take his case to the people,” Administration officials said. An important part of the plan is for Mr. Reagan to address groups of young professionals involved in the high technology and space industries, where he will discuss the future in terms of reducing the Federal deficit and limiting spending.
Last fall, Union Carbide safety inspectors warned managers at the company’s plant in Institute, W. Va., that a “runaway reaction” at a tank storing methyl isocyanate could lead to a “catastrophic failure” of the tank. The warning was made on Sept. 11, three months before methyl isocyanate escaped from a storage tank at a similar Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing more than 2,000 people and injuring thousands. The company did not respond today to queries to its headquarters in Danbury, Conn., about whether it had acted upon the report or transmitted its warnings and recommendations to Bhopal. Representative Robert E. Wise Jr., a West Virginia Democrat whose district includes the plant in Institute, said Warren Anderson, the chairman of the Union Carbide Corporation, described the warning about the tank as “a worst- case scenario.”
On the same day the E.P.A. sought a multimillion-dollar fine against a toxic waste handler based in one suburb of Chicago, the federal agency was accused of dragging its feet in handling a dioxin-contaminated site in another suburb.
TIME magazine did not libel Ariel Sharon even though it published a false and defamatory article about him, a Manhattan jury concluded, ending a two-month trial that pitted one of Israel’s top leaders against a major American news organization. In a courtroom crowded with silent spectators, the jury announced that TIME had not published the 1983 article while having “serious doubts as to its truth.” At 12:15 PM, as tension heightened in the crowded courtroom of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, the jury announced its verdict, ending a dramatic trial that pitted one of Israel’s top leaders against a major American news organization. The jury’s foreman, Richard Peter Zug, also read an unusual statement by the jurors, amplifying the verdict and criticizing the correspondent who provided the disputed paragraph. “We find,” he said, “that certain TIME employees, particularly correspondent David Halevy, acted negligently and carelessly in reporting and verifying the information which ultimately found its way into the published paragraph of interest in this case.” The jury decided last week that the paragraph was defamatory and false. But the verdict yesterday ended the two-month libel trial.
A judge today halted closed Federal hearings on the Wilberg Mine fire that killed 27 people last month unless at least one reporter could attend. Federal District Judge David Winder signed a temporary restraining order stopping closed hearings that began Monday in Price, Utah. The hearings were conducted by the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration to determine the cause of the fire December 19 in the mine near Orangeville. The injunction was issued in response to a lawsuit by 12 news organizations, including the Society of Professional Journalists. Joseph Anderson, a Labor Department attorney, told the judge that witnesses would be more candid to Federal investigators if they knew their comments were not being reported.
Members of the sanctuary movement for Central American refugees were buoyed by the acquittal of a Roman Catholic lay worker in Texas on charges of transporting illegal aliens. Nine members of the movement who face similar indictments in Tucson vowed “to continue to engage in sanctuary ministry.”
The Federal Aviation Administration announced that it is investigating allegations made anonymously on a CBS newscast that pilots of the troubled commuter Provincetown-Boston Airline used drugs and alcohol in the cockpit. Airline officials also asked federal drug agents to investigate. Last November 10, the FAA revoked the airline’s certificate of operation because of safety violations. In December, a Provincetown-Boston Bandeirante aircraft crashed outside Jacksonville, Florida, killing 13 persons. Last week, the airline announced that it is temporarily pulling out of 15 Southern markets. On Wednesday, the FAA said that it will ground a Provincetown-Boston pilot for carelessness that resulted in an emergency landing last month in Fort Myers, Florida.
The first of 41 children to testify in a preliminary hearing against seven former teachers accused of 200 counts of child molestation backed down under cross-examination today, recanting his sometimes graphic testimony. The 7-year-old boy said his earlier testimony of “naked games” and “touching” had only been “stories.” The boy had said earlier that he and other students at the McMartin Preschool in suburban Manhattan Beach had been coaxed into taking off their clothes and playing touching games as teachers took pictures of them. But, under questioning by Brad Brunon, a defense attorney, the boy said he had not been coaxed into taking his clothes off.
The nation’s volunteer agency ACTION said in Washington that it has disciplined an employee for sending an unauthorized letter to an anti-abortion group suggesting that it apply for federal anti-poverty grants. ACTION spokesman Jim Malone said that Myron E. McKee, special assistant to the agency’s executive officer, received a letter of reprimand and was ordered to reimburse ACTION for about $150 in costs. Officials of Birthright, an anti-abortion group, had written asking how to apply for anti-poverty volunteers from VISTA — Volunteers in Service to America.
FBI Director William H. Webster acknowledged that “there are pockets of concern” about violent crime in the United States, even though overall rates for serious crime have declined in the last two years. Webster said in an interview on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America” that fear of confrontation with criminals exists “particularly in areas where individuals feel vulnerable to violent crime.”
Trustees of Kent State University have agreed to build a memorial to the four students who were killed in the shootings by the National Guard in an antiwar demonstration on May 4, 1970. The memorial was one of several recommendations made by a memorial committee made up of students, faculty members, town residents and alumni and accepted by the trustees at a special meeting Wednesday. The committee recommended that the memorial be located near Taylor Hall, the campus building closest to the site of the shootings. Michael Schwartz, president of the university, said the memorial would not only commemorate the four students killed in the shootings and nine others who were wounded, but also would “create a site in memory of those events and those students that is one of reflection and learning and peace on our campus.”
Federal researchers recommended that the government re-examine workplace standards on exposure to butadiene, citing new evidence that the chemical-a main component of synthetic rubber-may be a potent cause of cancer. Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences said that the chemical has caused cancer in mice at exposure levels much lower than the maximum permitted by the government.
Agriculture Secretary John R. Block is severing his ties with an Illinois business partner whose financial problems may have posed a threat to Block’s farming business, officials said. Block’s partner, John W. Curry of Galesburg, Illinois, moved to file for bankruptcy this week after an Iowa judge appointed a receiver to take over Curry’s assets in that state. “The partnership is in the process of being dissolved,” John Ochs, Block’s press secretary, said in Washington. “It was a mutual decision which benefited both parties.”
Deborah Ann Jahnke, whose prison sentence for aiding in the 1982 slaying of her abusive father was commuted by Gov. Ed Herschler of Wyoming, was released today from a Denver youth center, her attorner said. Miss Jahnke, 19 years old, will enroll at the University of Wyoming in Laramie for the spring semester, her attorney, Terry Mackey, said. Miss Jahnke and her brother Richard, 18, were convicted in the ambush slaying of their father, Richard C. Jahnke, 38. The elder Mr. Jahnke was shot to death in the driveway of his home by his son on Nov. 16, 1982. Testimony at the trial indicated the father had physically and psychologically abused his two children for years. Miss Jahnke’s brother was convicted in February 1983 of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison, but the sentence was commuted last June. Miss Jahnke was convicted in a separate trial of aiding and abetting voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to up to eight years in prison; her sentence was commuted in December.
Michigan researchers said that they have found a new factor that may contribute to high blood pressure in adults under age 56: higher, but still normal, levels of lead in the blood. Persons with high blood pressure also tended to have low levels of calcium in their diet and zinc in their blood, said Dr. Robert L. Schmouder, one of the researchers at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
The Texas A&M University Board of Regents announced in Houston that it will appeal a federal judge’s approval of a settlement that would allow women to join previously all-male organizations at the university. The approval by U.S. District Judge Ross Sterling had appeared to end a five-year legal battle over the exclusion of women from the Corps of Cadets, the Aggie Band, the Ross Volunteers, the Fish Drill Team, Parson’s Mounted Cavalry, Rudder’s Rangers and various color guard units.
The Florida Supreme Court today unanimously upheld a state ban on Sunday gambling and horse racing, rejecting arguments by parimutuel interests that the ban was unconstitutional. The court said the ban served a legitimate function because it encouraged people to spend their time in “more healthy recreational pursuits.” But it also said the ban was not upheld strictly for religious reasons. The state’s attorneys argued that the prohibition had a secular purpose of providing “a day of rest, a surcease, from gambling activities,” and that the Legislature had the right to establish such a restriction on any day of the week. Sunday was picked as that day because many people chose Sunday as their day of rest, the attorneys said.
Commercial hospital chains are increasingly taking over financially- strapped public hospitals, and the mixed results have led to a dispute among health professionals and public officials as to the trend’s impact on the care of the poor. Public hospitals have welcomed takeovers because of deteriorating buildings, obsolete equipment, a loss of physicians, declining occupancy and inadequate financing.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1270.43.
Born:
Karis Paige Bryant, American actress (“While Justice Sleeps”), in Arlington, Texas.
Niuman Romero, Venezuelan MLB pinch runner, shortstop, and first baseman (Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox), in Barcelona, Venezuela.
Jay Sborz, MLB pitcher (Detroit Tigers), in Washington, District of Columbia.
Trey Gilder, NBA small forward (Memphis Grizzlies), in Dallas, Texas.
History Diaries 