Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher flies to Washington on Tuesday, determined to press President Reagan to do everything possible to make a success of the arms control talks with the Soviet Union that are to open in Geneva on March 12. “The Geneva talks are at the top of her agenda,” said one of the officials involved in preparing for the visit, which will include an address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, the first such speech by a British Prime Minister since Winston Churchill’s in 1952. “Arms control will figure very importantly in what she says privately to the President and in what she says publicly to Congress,” the official said. Mrs. Thatcher and her aides have taken great pains in recent days to play down any suggestion of a rift with Mr. Reagan. She described herself in an interview with CBS News over the weekend as “his greatest fan.”
Britain’s Defense Secretary denied today that the Government had misled Parliament over the sinking of an Argentine cruiser during the war in the Falkland Islands, but critics persisted in asserting that there had been an official cover-up. In a heated House of Commons debate, the official, Michael Heseltine, reiterated the Government’s contention that the missile-armed cruiser, the General Belgrano, had been ordered sunk because it threatened Britain’s task force sailing to recapture the Falklands from the Argentines. The Belgrano was sunk by the nuclear-powered Royal Navy submarine Conqueror on May 2, 1982, killing 368 Argentine sailors, the biggest single casualty toll of the 10-week war.
A senior official in the Polish Interior Ministry charged that a pro-Solidarity exile group in Belgium has links with the CIA and receives advice from Americans, including AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. The official, Col. Zbigniew Pudysz, was quoted as saying that some Solidarity members were being investigated for treason. His remarks were made in an interview shown Sunday evening on Polish television. The Brussels-based exile group accused Polish authorities of basing their charges on forged documents.
A memoir by a Soviet defector has rekindled a debate in the corridors of the United Nations Secretariat over the extent to which an independent civil service is possible within a world body of sovereign states. When the United Nations was founded nearly 40 years ago, the Secretariat, the organization’s administrative arm, was created as a group of civil servants whose first loyalty was to the world body itself. Under the United Nations Charter, every employee swears an oath promising not to “seek or accept instructions from any government or other authority external to the organization.” The defector, Arkady N. Shevchenko, who was the senior Soviet official at the United Nations from 1973 until his defection in 1978, has asserted that the Soviet Union has used the United Nations Secretariat, the organization’s administrative body, for espionage.
Prime Minister Bettino Craxi of Italy told Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel tonight that the time was not yet right for a new Middle East peace initiative. “There are not yet enough conditions for a new peace initiative,” Mr. Craxi told Mr. Peres, who arrived today on a three-day visit to Italy. The remark was contained in a joint statement. Mr. Craxi’s remark appeared to rule out any attempt by the European Economic Community, of which Italy nowholds the rotating presidency, to present new proposals to bring peace to the Middle East. Mr. Peres said after the meeting that Mr. Craxi had rejected the idea of an international conference on the Middle East, an idea favored by many Arab nations and opposed by Israel and the United States. The Israeli added that he and Mr. Craxi “saw eye to eye on most matters” in their talks.
A car bomb exploded outside a Shia Muslim militia office in Beirut, killing three people and injuring more than 40. In Sidon, the southern port evacuated by Israeli troops over the weekend, Shias tore down Lebanese flags and obliterated pictures of President Amin Gemayel, a Christian. In other violence, two Israeli soldiers were killed in ambushes behind Israel’s new south Lebanon front line, the Israeli military announced. Meanwhile, former world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, in Beirut on a mission to try to rescue four kidnaped Americans, decided against returning home immediately, his lawyer said. Ali now plans a trip to Damascus.
Shiite Muslim fundamentalists drove into Sidon, Lebanon, to celebrate the departure of Israeli forces from the port city. The thousands of armed demonstrators called for an Islamic republic in Lebanon. Dominated by the group called the Party of God, the demonstration was both an assertion of political power by the radical wing of the Shiite movement and an attack on President Amin Gemayel, a Maronite Catholic, who made an appearance in Sidon Sunday. The Shiites are the dominant religious group in southern Lebanon. “Allah-u-Akhbar!” — “God is great!” — the young Shiite men cried as they rolled into Sidon in a caravan of several hundred cars, buses and trucks, many piled high with guerrillas brandishing Kalashnikov assault rifles.
The Kuwaiti container ship Al Manakh was hit by an Iranian missile in the Persian Gulf, its owners said. Lloyd’s Shipping Intelligence in London said the 32,500-ton vessel was on fire about 90 miles north of the United Arab Emirates. The attack was the first blamed on Iran in the Persian Gulf this year and occurred farther south than any of the previous strikes in the so-called tanker war between Iran and Iraq.
Pakistan’s military government rounded up the last of the country’s opposition leaders, who have advocated a boycott of general elections next week, opposition sources said. Police put under house arrest four moderate opposition politicians in Karachi and detained another for expulsion. A sixth was jailed in Lahore, capital of Punjab province. Opposition sources said hundreds of government opponents have been detained since late January.
Thailand said it will lodge a protest at the United Nations over the deaths of six people in a Vietnamese attack on its territory over the weekend. Vietnamese and Thai gunners exchanged fire across the Thai-Cambodian border after Vietnamese soldiers tried to seize a hilltop inside Thailand as part of an attack on Cambodian rebels, the Thai army said. Six villagers were killed by Vietnamese shelling around O-Bok, about 185 miles northeast of Bangkok, before Thai units pushed the intruders back into Cambodia, the army said.
A United States Senator and refugee experts here expressed concern today over what appears to be a Thai Government decision to use force to turn back Laotian refugees – including many who once fought in the C.I.A.’s “secret army.” Reports in the Thai press in recent weeks have said that the Thai Government, in an effort to stem a rise in Laotian refugees, had refused since the beginning of the year to permit the Laotians to continue crossing the Mekong River into Thailand. There have been reports that Thai border troops have killed some of the Laotians. Of prime concern to Senator Mark O. Hatfield, Republican of Oregon, and refugee specialists is the fate of the Hmong hill people, who were part of the clandestine army that fought the North Vietnamese for many years before the Central Intelligence Agency cut off funds between 1973 and 1975.
The Chinese Government today dismissed recent Vietnamese advances against Cambodian guerrillas as militarily insignificant and said Vietnam would never fulfill its “vicious aim of perpetual occupation” of Cambodia. A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement three days after Vietnamese troops overran a stronghold of the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge guerrillas said the offensive had yielded little because the insurgents had made a strategic retreat beforehand. The Chinese assessment was seen by Western diplomats as an attempt to place a positive interpretation on a setback to Chinese hopes that the Khmer Rouge would eventually exhaust the Vietnamese. The diplomats noted that, only three weeks ago, China had regarded the Vietnamese offensive as sufficiently threatening to justify an oblique warning of a new war between China and Vietnam.
President Chun Doo Hwan carried out a major reorganization of his Cabinet today, a week after a new opposition party made major gains in parliamentary elections. Mr. Chun named Lho Shin Yong, a former chief of national security, to be Prime Minister. He also brought in 12 other new ministers.
Eighteen Mexicans who fled across the international border to Eagle Pass, Texas, after a violent. political demonstration asked for refuge in Texas, saying they feared police reprisals in Mexico. In Piedras Negras, gunshots at the political rally injured at least four people, including three Mexican police officers. The rally was held by the opposition National Action Party to protest alleged vote fraud by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in municipal elections last December 2. Violence over the same issue December 29 left one dead, 80 injured and the city hall burned.
A member of Chile’s ruling junta said today that he had told a visiting American official that the military government would legalize non-Marxist political parties this year. The junta member, Admiral Jose T. Merino Castro, the navy commander, said he had stated the commitment at a meeting with Langhorne A. Motley, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter- American Affairs. Mr. Motley met with President Augusto Pinochet and seven leading aides today to reassert Washington’s support for a return to democracy in Chile, but Admiral Merino was the only official who revealed anything of substance about the talks. “The political-parties law will be put on the legislative table in March and will be dispatched by all means during the course of 1985,” he said. Political parties have been illegal since the military took power in a 1973 coup. The admiral occasionally has differed with General Pinochet, and it is not known if his commitment to legalize some parties is shared by the President, who can overrule the junta. General Pinochet imposed a state of siege in November to crack down on guerrilla violence.
Two key Argentine finance officers resigned. Last year, they shaped an agreement for a $1.42 billion standby loan from the International Monetary Fund and won $4.2 billion in new funds from Argentina’s 320 creditor banks. The resignations of Bernardo Grinspun, the Economics Minister, and Enrique Garcia Vazquez, president of the central bank, were seen as a positive step by the international banking community. Argentina has the third-largest debt in the developing world — an estimated $45 billion — after Brazil and Mexico, with almost $100 billion each. The announcement last night was made by Jose Ignacio Lopez, a spokesman for Argentina’s President, Raul Alfonsin. Mr. Lopez said that the resignations had been accepted but he offered no elaboration. Both officials had taken office in December 1983, when the Alfonsin Government took charge, ending eight years of military rule.
Nineteen ships carrying 133,000 metric tons of food aid, one-tenth of Ethiopia’s total estimated relief needs for 1985, are expected to arrive by the end of this month, a United Nations official said today. “The flow of food aid from abroad this year looks assured,” said Desmond Taylor, the officer in charge of the United Nations emergency operation in Ethiopia.
The State Department disclosed “some delay” in releasing economic aid funds to Sudan but said a U.S. emergency food program for the drought-stricken country is being accelerated. Responding to published reports that all aid to Sudan has been frozen, a department spokeswoman said aid will be delayed pending talks with Sudanese officials on desired economic reforms. According to the reports, the International Monetary Fund has also curtailed aid until Sudan takes positive economic action.
South African demonstrators fought the police in running battles in a packed squatter camp outside Cape Town. At least five people were reported killed and 60 injured. Witnesses said demonstrators at the camp, called Crossroads, set up barricades of blazing automobile tires after the police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and birdshot. The cause of the unrest, South African officials said, was a fear among the 100,000 residents of the settlement that they were to be forcibly removed to a newly created black township, Khayelitsha, situated in sand dunes several miles away. Gerrit Viljoen, the Cabinet minister responsible for the fortunes of many black people, denied that such a move was imminent.
Senator Paula Hawkins (R-Florida) whipped through George Washington’s Farewell Address in the nearly empty Senate in the record-tying time of 39 minutes, President Reagan rested up from a vacation and federal workers took a sunny holiday, all to celebrate Presidents Day — a day on which no Presidents were born. The founder of the country actually was born February 22. Hawkins, a first-termer, drew the unwanted but traditional assignment of reading the address, though Washington himself never read it. The House did away with the practice five years ago.
A plan to cut military spending by $21.2 billion over the next three years, mainly by eliminating 180,000 support positions from the Pentagon, has been developed by Senator Warren B. Rudman. The New Hampshire Republican said he believed that Senate Republican leaders would support elements of his proposal, to be made Tuesday in a speech to the Senate. He said that, if enacted, the plan would come close to freezing the Pentagon budget at its current level, as Senate leaders have been striving to do to bring down the Federal deficit, now running around $220 billion. The Rudman plan was developed over the past three weeks, reportedly with some assistance from budget officials within the Administration. It does not call for major cuts in weapons procurement, an idea vigorously opposed by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.
President Reagan calls a cancer victim who had his leg amputated to congratulate him on finishing a 3,000-mile cross country run to raise money for a cancer fund. The 22-year-old athlete who lost his right leg to cancer as a child finished a run across the United States today with a dousing of champagne and a jubilant leap into the Pacific Ocean. Jeff Keith of Fairfield, Connecticut, began his run June 4 at Faneuil Hall in Boston. At the finish, he was accompanied by students from Boston College, where he was a lacrosse goalie. Mr. Keith, who averaged 16 miles a day, said he “wanted to get my message across to the world that I’m not physically handicapped – I was physically challenged.” Michael McGee, director of athletics at the University of Southern California, presented Mr. Keith with a full-tuition scholarship for graduate study at the University of Southern California. Mr. Keith said he was inspired by Terry Fox, an amputee who died of cancer a few years ago while attempting to run across Canada.
Four Southern mayors questioned President Reagan’s budgetary priorities, saying American cities would be “devastated” under the Administration’s proposed spending plan. The proposed budget would slash basic federal programs such as urban development action grants, public transit block grants and general revenue sharing, said New Orleans Mayor Ernest Morial, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He added that the cuts could mean some cities will have lost 80% in federal funds since 1981. Morial appeared at a news conference with Mayors Andrew Young of Atlanta, Pat Screen of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and John Bourne Jr. of North Charleston, South Carolina, after the four met in Atlanta.
President Reagan’s proposed moratorium on housing aid for low- and moderate-income people will mean more families living in overcrowded and substandard conditions, the National Leased Housing Assn. said in Washington. “By calling for a moratorium on all assisted housing programs for the next two years, the Administration’s budget shatters the last remaining hopes of hundreds of thousands of low- and moderate-income Americans for obtaining decent, affordable shelter, and effectively ends a 50-year-old national commitment to that goal for all Americans,” said Donna Denman, president of the group.
The third artificial heart recipient, Murray P. Haydon, continued to make strong progress. However, a doctor offered a gloomy assessment of the condition of the second recipient, William J. Schroeder. A spokesman suggested that Mr. Schroeder, who is suffering from a fever of undetermined origin, might never be well enough to leave his Louisville, Kentucky, hospital.
General William C. Westmoreland and CBS ended their libel dispute with a joint statement that expressed the network’s respect for the general’s “long and faithful service to his country” and his esteem for the network’s “distinguished journalistic tradition.” CBS officials said they stood by the documentary that led to General Westmoreland’s $120 million libel suit and denied that the statement constituted an apology.
General William C. Westmoreland said of the out-of-court settlement of his libel suit against CBS that “I figured it was the best I could get.” General Westmoreland characterized the statement that both he and representatives of the network signed as “an apology.”
The Minnesota Senate gave preliminary approval in a 33–31 vote to a one-year ban on farm mortgage foreclosures “to send a signal to Washington” that farmers need better prices and lower interest rates. “I hope this bill is a trigger that results in a domino effect in other farm states,” said Republican Senator Charles Berg, a farmer from western Minnesota. Opponents of the bill included Senator Randy Kamrath, a fellow Republican and also a farmer. “This is very, very dangerous policy just to send a message,” he said. “This will dry up credit for farmers.” At least 34 votes are needed for final passage.
A jury was selected in Houston to hear the trial of two Sanctuary Movement members accused of transporting illegal Salvadoran refugees into the United States. Jack Elder, 41, is charged with conspiracy, bringing illegal aliens to the United States and transporting illegal aliens. Stacey Merkt, 30, is accused of conspiracy and transporting illegal Salvadoran aliens. U.S. District Judge Filemon Vela reiterated an earlier decision to adopt a ruling in a previous federal trial that Elder was religiously motivated but the government could prosecute him because of overriding public interest.
Miami customs officers released an Avianca Airlines jumbo jet after the Colombian airline agreed to post a $1.98-million bond-the maximum fine Avianca faces for carrying more than a ton of cocaine into the United States. The Boeing 747 was seized Friday when customs officers at Miami International Airport discovered the cocaine hidden in a shipment of flowers. U.S. Customs Commissioner William von Raab and Colombia’s Embassy reached a bond agreement in Washington and the jumbo jet — the largest plane seized in the United States for carrying drugs — was released.
The Virginia House of Delegates today approved and sent to the Governor a bill that would raise the legal drinking age for beer to 21 by 1987. The bill, which was sought by Gov. Charles S. Robb, was approved 86 to 13. Already passed by the Senate, it would raise the beer-drinking age to 20 on October 1, 1986, and to 21 a year after that. The legal age for drinking wine and liquor in Virginia already is 21. A similar bill passed last month by the House would have delayed implementation until Congress passed a similar law on military bases in the state, but that bill failed in the Virginia Senate.
Efforts to equalize the funds of school districts, a major goal of education reformers and many states in the 1970’s, have not significantly reduced the gap between the richest and poorest districts, according to school finance experts. In some states, they said, the disparities of wealth and spending have increased.
Protestants and Roman Catholics were urged today to make world hunger and “the crisis facing rural America” the focus of their 40-day Lenten observance, starting with a nationwide peal of church bells on Ash Wednesday.
Trafficking in birds of prey led to the arrests of 19 people in Canada. The arrests arose from a three-year inquiry by United States officials that has spread to Africa and Europe. Canadian officials say the 19 are part of a network that has sold hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of birds annually to foreign customers who use them in falconry.
Privately operated jails, which are increasing, have prompted new questions about accountability and prisoners’ rights. These are being addressed every day by the Corrections Corporation of America, which cares for more prisoners than any other private concern and operates detention facilities in Texas, Tennessee and North Carolina.
Dwight Gooden and the New York Mets reached agreement tonight on a one- year contract that will guarantee the 20-year-old strikeout pitcher $325,000 with the chance to earn $150,000 more in bonuses. Gooden’s salary will not quite match the record for a second-year player in the big leagues set in 1982 by Fernando Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who went from $40,000 to $350,000. But the right-hander can push his gross close to $500,000 and earn more than 10 times his rookie salary of $40,000 if he starts enough games, pitches enough innings, wins the Cy Young Award or even comes close. The agreement was reached after four months of sparring and sniping, and two and a half hours of bargaining today at the Mets’ spring training headquarters. No contract was signed or even drawn, but it is expected that one will be signed by Monday.
Born:
Lee Boyd Malvo, American serial killer, in Kingston, Jamaica.
Danny Ware, NFL running back (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 46-Giants, 2011; New York Giants, Tampa Bay Buccaneers), in Rockmart, Georgia.
Jonathan Holland, NFL wide receiver, cornerback, and kick returner (Oakland Raiders), in Monroe, Louisiana.
History Diaries 