A U.S.-Soviet meeting is expected by President Reagan. Speaking in a televised news conference, Mr. Reagan said it was “high time” he met the new Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in an effort to improve United States-Soviet relations, and he said he believed the prospects of a meeting “should be good.” Emphasizing his desire to meet the new Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, he brushed aside the notion that he was “being rebuffed” because he had not yet received a response to an invitation to Mr. Gorbachev to come to the United States. Mr. Reagan, speaking at a nationally televised news conference, said: “There are a number of things – bilateral situations between our two countries, other things to talk about – that we’re negotiating or talking to each other on a ministerial level. And that some of those could probably be further advanced if we met at a summit.”
American and Soviet arms control negotiators agreed today to divide into working groups on strategic, intermediate and space weapons next week for the first time since negotiations began March 12. The decision was announced by the American delegation after a two-hour meeting between the American team and the Soviet delegation. The subgroups will deal with long- range missiles, medium-range missiles and space and defensive weapons, as provided by the agreement in January that paved the way for the talks. They will begin work Tuesday, the American delegation said.
The ruling Politburo, holding its first regular weekly meeting since Mikhail S. Gorbachev became the Soviet leader last week, declared today that it was ready for improved relations with the West. The usual communiqué said the Soviet Union was ready to follow the line of détente, as it was practiced in the 1970’s. The phrase echoed the policy stated by Mr. Gorbachev in a speech made on taking office 10 days ago. He said then that the first priority in relations with the United States would be an accord on arms control and that the Soviet side would work to reach an agreement in the talks in Geneva. The communiqué, issued by the Tass press agency, avoided the recent Soviet press criticism of the American approach to the talks.
The Irish government said it will ban Nazi war criminal Pieter Menten, a Dutch millionaire, from returning to his Irish home after his release from a Dutch prison. Menten, 84, is due to be released from prison in the Netherlands today after serving two-thirds of a 10-year term for killing Polish Jews in 1941. The ban follows pressure from Ireland’s small Jewish community and the Labor Party to keep Menten out.
The Government of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou announced today that technical experts would examine the election headquarters of the opposition New Democracy Party after it had complained that its telephones were being tapped. The charge was made last Tuesday by the opposition leader, Constantine Mitsotakis. The government spokesman, Dimitris Maroudas, declared that no government agency was engaged in any surveillance of communications, except in cases involving national security. He said an inquiry into the New Democracy Party’s charges would be conducted by the Central Intelligence Service, the Public Order Ministry and the telecommunications service, as well as two technical experts to be chosen by the opposition party.
Explosions rocked the offices of the Royal Jordanian Airlines in Athens, Rome, and Nicosia, injuring a total of five people, authorities reported. In London, an anonymous telephone caller to a news agency said that the Palestinian group Black September, which carried out the Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes, was responsible for the attacks and would continue to hit Jordanian targets “until the aims of our Jordanian and Arab masses are achieved with the overthrow of the client regime.”
A major Israeli sweep against a group of Shiite Muslim villages in southern Lebanon resulted in the slaying of what the Israeli Army described as 21 “terrorists.” The assault involved hundreds of Israeli soldiers and dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers.
Two news crew members were killed and several were wounded when an Israeli tank shelled a group of journalists in the southern Lebanon attacks. Those slain were a cameraman and a soundman working for CBS News. The network protested the incident, telling Prime Minister Shimon Peres in Jerusalem that witnesses had described the attack on the journalists and their “unmistakably marked” car as “unprovoked and deliberate.” An Israeli Army spokesman said the journalists, all three Lebanese nationals, had apparently been among a group of armed men in one of the villages.
Iraq said its ground forces staged a lightning strike on Iranian lines, seizing enemy positions and killing hundreds of Iranian troops. The Iraqi military command issued a communique saying two army brigades took part in a two-phase attack on the Iranians east of the Iraqi city of Basra. The Iraqis, the communique said, advanced for “long distances, destroying enemy forces and occupying their positions.” It said 426 Iranians were killed, including two commanders. There was no immediate Iranian reaction to the report. In a communiqué issued in Baghdad, the Iraqi military command said two army brigades had taken part in a two- phase attack on the Iranians in the southern desert region of the front and occupied more than two miles of “enemy positions.” The communiqué did not cite specific locations. Iraq said that its jet fighters, while flying over Iran, shot down an Iranian F-4 fighter near the city of Hamadan. The Teheran radio, monitored in London, said Iraqi planes had raided “populous centers” in Ilam, killing 12 people and wounding 45.
An unidentified gunman on a motorcycle shot and killed a Soviet diplomat in New Delhi, India, as he sat in a car near his embassy today. The assailant and an accomplice escaped. It was the first such attack on a Soviet official known to have been reported in India. Among Russians who live here, the attack immediately stirred concern about safety.
The Government of Laos today freed an American who accidentally crossed into Laotian territory while swimming in the Mekong River last week, according to Thai officials and an associate of the freed man. The freed man, Jon Robert Phillips, 29 years old, of Rumson, New Jersey, was on vacation in Thailand when he swam out into the river last Friday to sunbathe on an island that he was not aware belonged to Laos, according to Thai and American accounts. Mr. Phillips, who teaches at an Indochinese refuge center in Indonesia, was reportedly escorted today by Laotian and American officials to a ferry that brought him to the Thai river town of Nong Khai. He is expected to leave Thailand within the next few days.
Death-squad plotting formed the basis of an accusation by a former head of El Salvador’s intelligence agency. The former official, Colonel Roberto Santivanez, charged that a man who was a senior officer in the largest United States-backed Nicaraguan insurgent group “played a key role” in organizing and training the death squads in El Salvador.
The Bolivian government and union leaders attempted to set up meetings to mediate an end to a strike that has paralyzed the inflation-ridden nation for two weeks. Both sides agreed to mediation by the Roman Catholic Church. The church said it offered to mediate in an effort to avoid any “situation that may lead to a confrontation between brothers and a bloodbath.” Union leaders vowed to lead 250,000 people on a hunger strike if President Hernan Siles Zuazo refuses to withdraw military forces called out to guard La Paz, the capital, from further demonstrations. The strikers are demanding wage boosts and other benefits.
A Brazilian Franciscan priest, Father Leonardo Boff, said he will “listen and follow” Roman Catholic Church recommendations but “will not be interrupted” by Vatican findings that his teachings on liberation theology are “indefensible” and “dangerous.” Boff was responding to Vatican criticism of his 1981 book, “Church: Charisma and Power,” which accused the church of elitism and failing to take an active stand on human rights and politically sensitive issues. Boff was summoned to the Vatican last September and questioned about the book. The Vatican this week issued a critical 10-page report on the meeting but did not impose any sanctions on Boff.
Brazilian riot troops quelled a 19-hour rebellion by thousands of inmates in Sao Paulo’s central prison after at least nine prisoners were killed and several cell blocks were damaged by fire. Eleven guards who had been held hostage were released. The rebellion in the 6,200-inmate prison began with protests over judicial delays in releasing prisoners.
President Raul Alfonsin of Argentina said in New York yesterday that the United States cannot expect Latin American nations to share its national security concerns unless they have political democracies of their own to defend. When the United States applies these national security criteria to its relations with Western Europe, that is a view Europeans can understand and support because they have freedom and prosperity, too, he said. “To achieve security it is necessary that one have the desire to defend something that he already has,” the Argentine leader said. “But what meaning can there be for the majority of a population in defending a freedom it does not enjoy or a prosperity it does not have?”
The House quickly approved and sent to President Reagan for signature a bill authorizing $175 million in emergency non-food aid to help African nations combat famine. The bill, previously approved by the Senate, is similar to part of a measure that Reagan vetoed two weeks ago because it contained aid for U.S. farmers. The funds will supplement $425 million earmarked for African famine relief.
Thirty-five South African blacks were killed when the police opened fire on a crowd of up to 4,000 black people near a southeast coastal town. On the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre, members of the South African Police opened fire on a crowd of people gathered on Maduna Road between Uitenhage and Langa township in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The crowd had been attending a funeral of one of the six who had been slain by the apartheid police on 17 March 1985. They had gathered at Maduna Square and were heading towards the house where the funeral was held when the police blocked the road with two armoured vehicles and ordered the crowd to disperse. When the crowd failed to comply immediately, police opened fire on the crowd, killing 35 people and leaving 27 wounded. The incident became known as the Uitenhage/Langa massacre. The government initially claimed only 17 were killed.
President Reagan spends the day lobbying with Representatives for the upcoming MX Missile program funding vote.
President Reagan participates in his 29th Press Conference. A willingness for budget changes was indicated by President Reagan at his televised news conference. “We recognize that others may have other ideas,” Mr. Reagan said at a nationally televised news conference, the second of his new term. “But now they’ve got something that we can sit down and talk about, theirs and ours, see where we come out.” However, he rejected any significant reduction in his proposed military appropriation, a major issue between him and Senate Republican leaders, with whom he is to meet today.
Despite President Reagan’s defense of his Pentagon budget tonight, pressures are mounting on him to decide whether to continue to hold his ground or to begin forging a compromise budget package with Senate Republican leaders. The Senate majority leader, Bob Dole, won agreement today for the Senate Republicans to make their case to the President over luncheon Friday for the $12 billion in cuts that the Senate Budget Committee made in his requested military appropriation.
In spite of the President’s willingness to meet with the Senate Republicans, reaffirmed at his news conference tonight, both White House and Senate officials assert that the two sides are sharply at odds, and their differences were underscored at a meeting on Capitol Hill this morning. In the session, Senator Pete V. Domenici, the Budget Committee chairman, warned the White House delegation that the committee package, which makes greater cuts in military spending and somewhat smaller ones in domestic spending than Mr. Reagan proposed, was “the best you’re going to get.” If the President did not accept that approach, Mr. Domenici said he would risk losing the $32 billion in cuts made by the committee in domestic programs.
Senator James A. McClure, Republican of Idaho, and Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, have got into a dispute over tactics intended to win support for the MX nuclear missile, according to a staff aide for the Senator. The aide, David Sullivan, said in an interview that the Senator had evidence from intelligence agencies that the Soviet Union had 8,500 nuclear warheads on its various intercontinental missiles.
President Reagan tonight opposed any extension of a special unemployment compensation program that is due to expire at the end of this month. The President’s comment at his news conference came after Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., the Speaker of the House, had challenged Mr. Reagan to make his views clear. In a letter to the President released today, Mr. O’Neill said he was ready to schedule legislation extending the program 18 more months. But he said he did not want Congress to go through an “empty exercise” and pass a bill that would be vetoed.
Reagan Administration officials said that it would be too difficult to include “hate crime” categories — offenses involving the expression of racial, ethnic or religious prejudice — in the FBI’s national crime statistics and suggested that Congress collect newspaper clippings to obtain such information. The testimony by Justice Department officials at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing angered Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan), who responded: “These problems are bigger than going to a clipping service. That’s a simplistic solution.”
The nation’s first case of a worker being killed by a robot indicates a lack of awareness that robots can be dangerous, federal health officials warned. “The failure of employees to recognize hazards associated with robots is an important problem,” the national Centers for Disease Control said in Atlanta. A 34-year-old Michigan worker, who was not identified, was killed last July when operating an automated die-casting system that included an industrial robot.
Pittsburgh prosecutors said that they will appeal a judge’s decision. dismissing rape charges because the 13-year-old complainant was late for the trial. “You have a 13-year-old girl who was raped and can’t tell her story because… she was 30 minutes late” due to traffic, said Allegheny County District Attorney Robert Colville. Senior Common Pleas Judge J. Quint Salmon, 77, said that he had “no alternative” but to dismiss the charges against Geoffrey Adams, 28, when the girl failed to appear by 9:30 AM, half an hour after the trial was scheduled to begin.
A man who was on the same New York subway train when Bernhard H. Goetz shot four teen-agers said that he told a grand jury that he never felt threatened by the youths and added: “I don’t think there was a reason for that shooting.” Victor Flores, 47, told the New York Daily News that he was riding on the subway with Goetz and the youths on Dec. 22 when the shootings occurred. He said that he testified about what he saw before the two grand juries that have looked into the case, the News reported. Goetz is scheduled to testify before the second grand jury on March 29.
Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell, speaking at a fund-raiser in Tucson, said that he expects a national boycott of 7-Eleven stores within a few months unless the 7,500-store chain orders a halt to sales of such magazines as Penthouse and Playboy. He said he hopes “7-Eleven will cave in because it’s right, not because they have to.” Falwell said that about 6,000 retail stores already have “removed pornography from their shelves in the last few months.”
A Navy intelligence analyst’s admission to FBI agents that he leaked three classified spy photographs to a British military journal may not be used in his espionage trial, a judge ruled in Baltimore. U.S. District Judge Joseph H. Young ordered the suppression of Samuel Loring Morison’s statement because Morison was not represented by a lawyer when he was interrogated by FBI agents after his arrest on October 1. Morison, 40, of Crofton, Maryland, was a civilian with high security clearance at the Naval Intelligence Support Center in Suitland.
Babies born to mothers with hepatitis B infections should be vaccinated immediately to prevent the child from contracting the virus, doctors recommended. Infants born to mothers with hepatitis B have an 85% to 90% chance of being infected and of becoming lifetime carriers of the virus causing the disease, said Dr. Cladd Stevens of the New York Blood Center. Hepatitis B causes a liver disease. Symptoms include nausea, fever, fatigue and jaundice.
Several Ohio thrift units reopened with no recurrence of the major run on deposits that led last Friday to the widest closing of financial institutions since the Depression. But most of the institutions were ordered closed again until they meet Federal liquidity requirements. Ohio banking officials said they expected to permit nearly all of the 71 state-insured savings institutions to reopen soon on a limited basis, enabling customers to withdraw up to $750 each for necessities and to make deposits.
An farmer who raided a bankrupt grain elevator to take 33,000 bushels of soybeans was in contempt of court and should pay more than $341,000, a Federal judge says. Federal District Judge G. Thomas Eisele said Wednesday that if the farmer, Wayne Cryts, of Puxico, Missouri, did not pay at least one-third of the judgment within a year it would be increased by $50,000. “I don’t have the money to pay the fine, but even if I did I wouldn’t,” Mr. Cryts said by telephone from his home. “If it means going back to jail, I sure don’t want to be in jail, but I’m willing to accept that.” Mr. Cryts contended that the bankruptcy of the grain elevator put his 33,385 bushels of beans in limbo, and in February 1981 he recovered the crops from the elevator at Ristine, Missouri, owned by the James Brothers Company of Corning, Arkansas. Judge Eisele said the bankruptcy trustee was entitled to the value of the soybeans, $218,000, plus interest and attorney fees.
A nurse admitted she gave an elderly woman a lethal dose of drugs to save the patient “from further pain and suffering,” the police said today. The nurse, Jane Bolding, 27 years old, of Washington, D.C., was charged with first-degree murder, according to Major James Ross of the police. She was released on $50,000 bond. Miss Bolding was arrested Wednesday and charged in the death of Eleanor Dickerson, 70, on September 29, Major Ross said. Major Ross said the “professional staff” at Prince Georges General Hospital came to the police Monday with “unsubstantiated but suspicious information relating to incidents in the intensive care unit.” The hospital said there were “less than a half dozen” suspicious incidents in the unit that had to be examined.
A federal district judge offered today to set aside part or all of a $10 million punitive damage award in a toxic shock case if International Playtex Inc. altered or stopped selling its tampons. The judge, Patrick Kelly, said his action was consistent with the verdict rendered February 25 by the jurors. “I believe what they were saying was ‘take that damnable product off the market,’ ” Judge Kelly said. “I don’t know if I have the authority to do it. But I’m going to try.” The award was part of a $11.52 million judgment in a suit filed by the family of Betty O’Gilvie, 21 years old, who died April 2, 1983. Pat Brozowski, a company spokesman, said it would have no comment until its officials had seen the ruling.
The Rhode Island State Commission on Judicial Tenure and Discipline may hire a “special assistant” to deal with the case of the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court and allegations that he has improper ties to organized crime. Judge Joseph F. Rodgers Jr. of Superior Court, the commission’s chairman, said today that Archibald Cox, the first special prosecutor in the Watergate scandals, was among those being considered “to present the case” to the commission. The furor over Chief Justice Joseph A. Bevilacqua arose in December after reports that the Chief Justice, a former defense lawyer, still associated with former convicts who had links to organized crime. The 66-year-old Chief Justice has acknowledged that he has had business or personal relationships with individuals linked by the Rhode Island state police to organized crime. But said he could associate with anyone so long as it did not affect his judicial performance.
Slower economic growth was reported by the Government. It said the economy, burdened by intense foreign competition, was now growing less than half as fast as it did in the final three months of 1984.
The number of black mayors rose last year by 31, reaching a new national high of 286, according to a study group. Data collected by the Joint Center for Political Studies show that the number of black mayors has more than doubled since 1975, when there were 135.
Small-scale drug smugglers will be listed and described by the United States Customs Service. It said it would publicize the names, addresses and occupations of people caught smuggling small amounts of illegal drugs who are not arrested or prosecuted. The service said the lists would be released weekly as a deterrent to drug smuggling.
Sir Michael Redgrave died in a London suburb at the age of 77. Sir Michael had been one of Britain’s preeminent stage actors and a leading film star since his hero’s role in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 thriller “The Lady Vanishes.”
Canadian Rick Hansen sets off on his ‘Man in Motion’ world tour in his wheelchair raising money for spinal research, from Oakridge Mall, Vancouver (successfully completed May 1987).
Arthur Ashe is nominated for the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1268.22 (+2.98)
Born:
Adrian Peterson, NFL running back (Pro Bowl, 2007-2010, 2012, 2013, 2015; Minnesota Vikings, New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals, Washington Redskins, Detroit Lions, Tennessee Titans, Seattle Seahawks), in Palestine, Texas.
Ryan Callahan, Team USA and NHL right wing (Olympics, silver medal, 2010; 4th, 2014; New York Rangers, Tampa Bay Lightning), in Rochester, New York.
Sonequa Martin-Green, American actress (“The Walking Dead”, “Star Trek: Discovery”), in Russellville, Alabama.
Died:
Michael Redgrave, 77, British actor (“Browning Version”, “Goodbye Mr Chips”, “The Lady Vanishes”), of Parkinson’s Disease.
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