Soviet leader General Secretary Konstantin U. Chernenko is dead. At 15:00, Chernenko fell into a coma and died later this evening at 19:20, at age 73. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a combination of chronic emphysema, an enlarged and damaged heart, congestive heart failure and liver cirrhosis. A three-day period of mourning across the country was announced the next day.
Chernenko became the third Soviet leader to die in less than three years. Upon being informed in the middle of the night of his death, U.S. President Ronald Reagan is reported to have remarked, “How am I supposed to get anyplace with the Russians if they keep dying on me?”
The chief Soviet arms negotiator said that Moscow’s goal in the Geneva arms talks with the United States is “preventing an arms race in space and terminating it on Earth.” In pointed contrast to the American negotiators’ arrival statement, issued 28 hours earlier, which did not mention space, Moscow’s chief negotiator, Viktor P. Karpov, stressed that the negotiations would deal with “a complex of questions concerning nuclear and space arms in their interrelationship.” The Soviet diplomat’s language was borrowed almost verbatim from the Jan. 8 joint statement in which Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko announced the format for the new talks that are to begin here Tuesday. Highlighting Space Arms The Russians have treated that statement as a sort of semantic victory in their effort to highlight the issue of space weapons, which have become central to American military plans.
The abrupt departure of Russians from Washington had raised speculation within the Reagan Administration that the Soviet leader Konstantin U. Chernenko had either died or was incapacitated. A Soviet Politburo member cut short his delegation’s visit without an explanation. Solemn music on the radio and the cancellation of normal programming on morning television were also signs of a possible death in the Soviet leadership. A Soviet Politburo member, Vladimir V. Shcherbitsky, unexpectedly cut short the American visit of his Soviet delegation today and planned to return to Moscow on Monday, State Department officials said tonight. The abrupt and unexplained announcement provoked immediate speculation in the Administration overnight that Konstantin U. Chernenko, the Soviet leader, had either died or was incapacitated. If a successor were being named, Mr. Shcherbitsky would be needed in Moscow to attend an emergency meeting of the Politburo, which is the policy-making organ of the Soviet Communist Party. Senior officials in the European bureau of the State Department and intelligence analysts were summoned to the State Department tonight. One official said Western monitors had noted that Soviet radio stations had begun to play serious classical music, which in the past has been an indication that a high official has died.
Vitaly I. Vorotnikov, a member of the Communist Party Politburo, cut short by one day a visit to Yugoslavia, Eastern European sources said. They said he canceled a final visit to the Yugoslavian capital, Belgrade, flying directly home Sunday night from Titograd. He reportedly arrived in Moscow at 3 A.M.
Konstantine Karamanlis resigned as President of Greece a day after Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou unexpectedly withdrew his pledge to support him for a second term in office. Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, who steered his ruling party away from Karamanlis, expressed his regret that the 70-year-old will not finish his term. The party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, voted unanimously in favor of supporting Christos Sartzetakis, a 56-year-old supreme court judge, for president. The action is seen as a move to the left. His resignation reflected his indignation over the rebuff by the Socialists and aggravated a political confrontation.
Administration officials said today that Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou’s unexpected decision to withdraw support for the re-election of President Konstantine Karamanlis would intensify the debate in Washington on American policy toward Greece. Mr. Papandreou’s move, which led to the resignation today of Mr. Karamanlis, raises new questions on how the Reagan Administration should deal with Greece, State Department officials said. “There are many in this Government who would like to really stick it to Papandreou,” one department official said. “And there are many who still believe you can deal with Papandreou even though he likes to kick the U.S. at every opportunity.”
Damage to Poland’s economy caused by one of the severest winters in this century could wipe out gains made over the last two years, Premier Wojciech Jaruzelski warned. The official PAP news agency said Jaruzelski told Communist Party activists in the Baltic port of Szczecin that making up the losses by the end of the year is one of the government’s main priorities.
The police raided a meeting of an outlawed anti-Communist group in Warsaw and arrested at least five members, the wife of the group’s leader said today. The official Polish press agency said the security police broke up a meeting of the group, the Confederation of Independent Poland, on Saturday. It said the group was trying to “destabilize the social situation and infringing upon law and order.” The press agency did not mention arrests. But Maria Moczulski, wife of the group’s leader, Leszek Moczulski, said her husband and at least four other people had been detained. She said she believed that about 10 people had attended the meeting. In October 1982, a Warsaw military court convicted Mr. Moczulski of setting up an illegal organization aimed at overthrowing the Government. He was released from prison in August under a general amnesty.
An anti-NATO West German mayor who is the leader of the opposition Social Democratic party’s left wing, won an absolute majority of seats in elections to the state legislature in the Saarland, excluding the leftist Green Party from representation. The winner, Oskar Lafontaine, Mayor of Saarbrücken, favors removing West Germany from NATO’s military structure. But voters today in both the Saarland and West Berlin gave comfort to the troubled Free Democratic Party — the junior partner in Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s conservative coalition government — by returning members of the party to both assemblies. This was heartening to Mr. Kohl, whose own position depends significantly on the fate of the Free Democrats.
American intelligence officials concealed the Nazi records of hundreds of former enemy scientists to try to get them into the United States after World War II, contrary to a Presidential order and against the objections of the State Department, according to declassified Government documents. The documents, disclosed in a coming magazine article, reveal that American authorities knew that many of the specialists were “ardent Nazis” implicated in atrocities and doctored their dossiers to hide this. How many Nazis got into the United States because of dossier changes is not clear. Not all of the dossiers were declassified.
London’s weekly Observer newspaper published a photograph of a man it called a prime suspect in the December 17, 1983, car-bombing of London’s Harrods department store, which the Irish Republican Army said was carried out by its members. The Observer said the picture, showing the unidentified man at a Northampton railway station with two convicted IRA guerrillas, was taken by police on January 17, 1984. Hours later, the three men, “together with a fourth, who is also a Harrods suspect and still at large, escaped after a high-speed car chase,” the paper said. Six people were killed in the bombing.
French socialists lose regional elections (Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front gets 9%). Centrist and conservative opposition parties won major victories today over the Socialists and Communists in voting for regional councils that was regarded as a final test run before the national legislative elections next year. Based on computer projections and partial results in 1,954 regions, the neo- Gaullist, centrist, right-wing and extreme right-wing parties polled more than 58 percent of the ballots, while the left totaled 41 percent. The scores were a virtual reversal of the voting pattern for the same regional councils in 1979, just two years before the left swept to power. In a statement before midnight, Interior Minister Pierre Joxe said that the vote totals were confirming the projections without significant variation.
Eight separatist guerrillas and two soldiers were killed in a clash near Diyarbakir, eastern Turkey, the semi official Anatolian press agency said today. It referred to members of “a separatist organization,” a phrase normally used to mean autonomy-seeking Kurdish guerrillas who regularly battle with Turkish troops in the east of the country. The agency identified the soldiers as a noncommissioned officer and a private. A passer-by was also killed. It said the clash erupted in the town of Sason but gave no other details.
A suicide car bomber killed 12 soldiers by crashing into an Israeli Army convoy in southern Lebanon. Fourteen other soldiers were wounded. The bombing was believed to be in retaliation for a bomb blast last Monday in the resistance stronghold of Marakah that killed the two key Shiite Muslim guerrilla leaders in the south, Mohammed Saad and Khalil Jeradi. The attack was the biggest single blow against the Israeli forces in Lebanon since a similar bombing blew up a building used as an Israeli intelligence center in Tyre in November 1983. That attack left 80 people dead, including 43 Israeli soldiers and other officials.
Iran said its warplanes bombed the Iraqi capital of Baghdad today. The air strike, if confirmed, would be the first against Baghdad since early 1983. There was no immediate report from Iraq of such an attack. Attacks by both sides on civilian targets have escalated since Tuesday, shattering an eight-month-old agreement to spare civilians in the war. Iran’s official press agency gave few details in reporting the air strike. Iran threatened a few days ago to hit all Iraqi cities in retaliation for attacks on Iranian civilian targets. The Iranian press agency announcement said: “The Iraqi capital city of Baghdad was bombed by the air force of the Islamic Republic of Iran Monday morning. A number of strategic points in the city were hit by Iran’s air force. Details will follow.”
The Iraqi press agency confirmed that the southern port of Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, had been the target of shelling. It also reported that the Iraqi Air Force had flown 282 air raids in the last 24 hours on Iranian positions. Iraq, armed with sophisticated surface-to-surface missiles, is widely considered capable of inflicting heavier casualties on Iran, which has a shortage of aircraft and relies on its long- range artillery. The Tehran radio said Iranian jet fighters had intercepted two Iraqi planes over western Iran and shot down one while the other fled. Baghdad reported downing an Iranian plane Saturday, but Iran denied the report.
Japan’s domestic savings are flowing in huge amounts to other countries, including the United States, which gets about half. The $50 billion to $100 billion flow represents Japan’s growing surplus in foreign trade, and a lot of it is being invested in Treasury securities issued to finance this country’s huge budget deficits. The money comes from the nest eggs of the Japanese, who save more than 20 percent of their wages, and the profits from Japan’s conquest of world automobile and electronic markets.
Divided Philippine opposition parties agreed on a political platform aimed at ending President Ferdinand E. Marcos’ rule. In the largest such gathering since martial law was imposed in 1972, more than 2,000 regime opponents also approved a formula for selecting a single slate of candidates in next year’s local elections. A declaration of principles was adopted, seeking the “dismantling of the Marcos dictatorship,” respect for human rights and an equitable distribution of wealth. “This is a historic occasion,” former Senator Salvador Laurel told reporters. “This is the first time that opposition leaders have gathered and agreed to unite in the fight against the Marcos dictatorship.” Several militant opposition leaders, including the widow of Benigno S. Aquino Jr., boycotted the meeting. They have formed a separate group to nominate their own candidate if Mr. Marcos calls for sudden elections.
Salvadoran guerrillas said a leading army field commander, under a campaign devised by U.S. military trainers, has launched a counterinsurgency operation in conjunction with the Honduran army along El Salvador’s northern border. Military sources in San Salvador said about 4,000 troops, backed by artillery units and ground-assault jets, have pushed into the mountainous northern reaches of Chalatenango province to seek out and destroy rebel concentrations. The force is reportedly led by Colonel Sigifredo Ochoa, commander of all forces in the province.
Sudanese President Jaafar Numeiri, who has survived more than 20 coup plots, accused an Islamic fundamentalist group of plotting to topple his government. Diplomats said more than 20 members of the organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, were arrested. Among those held was Hassan Tourabe, Numeiri’s political adviser and a chief architect of the controversial Islamic law system introduced into Sudan by Numeiri in 1983.
Vice President George Bush urged food-producing nations to coordinate their aid to the millions of Africans threatened by starvation. In remarks prepared for a U.N. conference in Geneva today, Bush-who just completed a trip through three drought-stricken African countries-also pleaded with warring African nations to allow the free passage of food to the needy within their borders.
The authorities in South-West Africa, which is controlled by South Africa, have imposed new measures restricting access to the north of the country, where guerrillas have been fighting a low-key war for 18 years. A police spokesman in Windhoek, the capital, said it was no longer possible to guarantee travelers’ safety in the region. As from Monday, he said, travelers will be required to have a police permit if they wish to visit an area stretching 600 miles along the territory’s northern border with Angola and Zambia and 300 miles down its frontier with Botswana. A curfew in the Kavango area bordering Angola, which was suspended last year, has also been reimposed, South African officials said. Experts on South-West Africa, which is also known as Namibia, said the measures seemed intended to control access to the area during a period of intensive operations by the military and the police.
Efforts to transfer public assets and programs to private enterprise are being stepped up by the Reagan Administration, which estimates this will save more than $200 million a year by 1989. About 11,000 commercial activities are to be taken over by private contractors when economically feasible.
President Reagan returns to the White House from the weekend at Camp David.
Artificial heart patient William J. Schroeder spent 30 minutes of a sunny afternoon riding through Louisville, Kentucky, neighborhoods on his first trip away from Humana Hospital Audubon with the compressed air-driven pump, a spokeswoman said. Schroeder became the first of the world’s three human recipients of a permanent mechanical heart to leave hospital grounds. “He greatly enjoyed being outside and spending time with his grandchildren, who were with him” for Saturday’s spur-of-the-moment ride in a customized van, spokeswoman Linda Broadus said.
Former President Richard M. Nixon says the United States should give terrorists only a single warning and then strike back, “even if there is some risk to innocent people.” And, he writes in a newly released book, “No More Vietnams,” civilized nations should act in unison when military retaliation is appropriate, letting terrorists know “they will spark the wrath of all nations.”
The Mississippi attorney general, Jackson public schools. and the state’s largest teachers organization agreed to ask a judge to delay a hearing in which he was expected to declare illegal a two-week strike by Mississippi teachers. The three agreed to file a joint motion asking Judge Paul Alexander to continue until next week the Tuesday hearing, in which he was expected to rule that teachers are state employees, subject to anti-strike laws.
A conservator was appointed for Home State Savings Association of Ohio, which has closed its 33 branches and is seeking a buyer after a run on deposits that began after the government-ordered closing of a major lender, officials said. Depositors started flocking to Home State to withdraw their cash after the court-ordered closure of ESM Government Securities Co. of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. ESM held government securities as collateral on a $670-million loan to Home State.
Vice Admiral Earl B. Fowler, chief of naval shipbuilding, has charged General Dynamics Corp. with a “blatant disregard for and breach of security regulations” after the unauthorized release in an internal company financial report of 19 highly sensitive photographs of the Trident ballistic-missile submarine, according to the Washington Post. In a letter to General Dynamics Chairman David S. Lewis, Fowler accused the company and its submarine building division, Electric Boat, of showing a “cavalier attitude” and losing control of information “damaging to the national security.”
Federal mediators ordered Pan American World Airways and its striking mechanics back to the bargaining table in New York, and both sides said they would comply by meeting Wednesday, the 14th day of the strike, a federal official said. Union and company negotiators have not met since 5,800 members of the Transport Workers Union, including baggage handlers and food service workers, walked off the job in a pay dispute February 28. Pan Am, which ordinarily operates about 400 flights a day, has been flying one-third to one-half of its flights during the strike. Local 504, representing 4,000 strikers, most of whom work at Kennedy International Airport, held a strategy session yesterday hours before Robert J. Brown, the mediator, called for Wednesday’s meeting. John Kerrigan, an international vice president of the Transport Workers Union, said yesterday that no decision had been made on a proposed meeting with C. Edward Acker, the chairman and chief executive of Pan Am.
About 100 blacks demonstrated Saturday against a proposal that the tobacco-farming community of Hemingway, South Carolina secede from a predominantly black county. Leaders of the march encouraged black residents to vote against an annexation proposal Tuesday that would remove Hemingway and surrounding Johnson Township from Williamsburg County and incorporate the towns into neighboring Florence County. Supporters of the plan say that the change would improve schools and services because Florence County has a better tax base and that this might attract more business and industry to the communities. Opponents say the proposal was racially motivated and suggested only after a predominantly black high school was consolidated with Hemingway High two years ago.
A majority of Americans believe X-rated movies and sexually explicit magazines should be on sale but nearly two out of three want a ban on materials that depict sexual violence, a Gallup Poll showed. Clear majorities favor the continued sale of X-rated movies and sexually explicit magazines, although some are willing to limit their public display, said the poll in Newsweek magazine. A plurality, 47%, favored a national standard for determining what is obscene rather than individual community standards. But by a 48% to 43% margin, those surveyed said they want to see the code remain as it is.
A cut in pollution-damage insurance is being made by the insurance industry because of costly environmental disasters in recent years. In the past six months, nearly all major insurers have decided to reduce or eliminate pollution policies. Thousands of industries now have little protection from damage claims and the Government’s ability to secure payment for the nation’s toxic-waste bill has been jeopardized.
A dispute over radioactive waste in West Chicago, Illinois, where there are four big deposits and numerous smaller waste sites, has grown into a test of national policy. The waste is from the milling of thorium, a radioactive ore once used in manufacturing atomic weapons. At a number of places in West Chicago, the waste exceeds the Federal Environmental Protection Agency’s safe limits for radiation, and if offering the first major test of a 1978 law to force nuclear fuel processors to clean up plant sites they want to abandon.
Flood victims in Illinois got a long- awaited reprieve yesterday from the rising Illinois River, which had forced 2,000 people from their homes. The Illinois leveled off in some areas and began a slow fall at Peoria, Illinois, dropping from 28.4 to 27.4 feet, the Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday.
A federal study of farm debt finds that one-third of all family-size commercial farms will face financial difficulty in 1985, and 13.7 percent of such farms are either insolvent or on the verge of it. The figures differ from those quoted by President Reagan Wednesday when he vetoed legislation that would have provided financial help to farmers. After a hearing in the Senate by a farm panel, Agriculture Secretary John R. Block said Mr. Reagan “misspoke.”
Ice Pairs Championship at Tokyo won by Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev (Soviet Union).
Men’s Figure Skating Championship in Tokyo won by Alexandr Fadeev (Soviet Union).
32nd ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament: Georgia Tech beats North Carolina, 57–54.
Dallas Maverick coach Dick Motta is 4th NBA coach to win 700 games.
Born:
Jackie Butler, NBA center (NBA Champions-Spurs, 2007; New York Knicks, San Antonio Spurs), in McComb, Mississippi.
Chris Taft, NBA center (Golden State Warriors), in Brooklyn, New York, New York.
Casey Dienel, American singer-songwriter, keyboardist, and ukulele player (Wind-Up Canary), in Massachusetts.
Died:
Konstantin Chernenko, 73, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1984-1985), of Emphysema.
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