U.S. flexibility in arms control talks was stressed by Secretary of State George P. Shultz. He said that Washington was ready to meet Moscow halfway in finding “a mutually acceptable approach” to the issues under negotiation in Geneva and was prepared for “trade-offs” in reducing missiles and bombers. But he offered no change in the Administration’s determination to proceed with research into strategic defenses despite Soviet insistence that there can be no progress in nuclear arms reduction until curbs in the defensive program are agreed upon.
Meanwhile, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the new Soviet leader, said in a letter to a group of West Germans that American statements on the Geneva talks “cannot but put one on guard.” Gorbachev criticized United States statements on arms control. In the letter, the Soviet leader said of the Americans, “One gets the impression that they need talks as a screen for carrying through their military programs.” Tass said the letter was in reply to one delivered to the Soviet Embassy in Bonn by a delegation of the peace council of Heilbronn, north of Stuttgart. The Heilbronn letter expressed alarm over the arms race, and Soviet leaders have been using such letters as vehicles for public statements.
The killing of an American major by a Soviet sentry in East Germany has prompted the United States Government to boycott the April 25 ceremonies in East Germany marking the 40th anniversary of the World War II link-up of Soviet and American forces on the Elbe River. According to American diplomats, there will be no Government representative and no American honor guard at the ceremonies on April 25 in East Germany to mark the 40th anniversary of the link-up between the Red Army and American forces. Before the fatal shooting of the officer, Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson Jr., on Sunday, there were plans to dispatch diplomats and a unit from the American military liaison mission in Potsdam to the ceremonies at Torgau. Major Nicholson, who was killed by a Soviet sentry after photographic Soviet military equipment near Ludwigslust, was a member of the liaison mission.
Western European governments have begun identifying areas of possible European participation in high-technology research involving the multibillion-dollar Strategic Defense Initiative. A confidential West German report, prepared by the Defense Ministry for Government planners and made available to reporters Wednesday, identifies five major areas in which German industry could offer cooperation. The report also listed six other fields of high technology, in which it said West Germany was “more or less backward,” that might be relevant to space-based defense systems. After a meeting Wednesday of NATO defense ministers in Luxembourg, Michael Heseltine, the British Defense Minister, told reporters that his department was drawing up a similar list for British industry.
Accords on Spanish and Portuguese entry into the Common Market were announced in Brussels after nearly 16 hours of negotiations, ending more than six years of bargaining. Spain and Portugal are scheduled to become the 11th and 12th members of the European trading bloc next January 1. The membership terms were subject to formal ratification by the Common Market, plus approval by the Parliaments of the 10 member countries and the Spanish and Portuguese Parliaments. Exact terms of the membership arrangement were not disclosed.
Rival Lebanese Muslim militias battled in the streets of Tripoli, killing six people and wounding 11 in fighting that threatened an eight-month-old Syrian-mediated truce. Fundamentalist Tawhid Muslims clashed with the pro-Syrian Arab Democratic Party militia for 12 hours, using automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. Syria had mediated a truce between rival factions to end bloody street battles in the northern port city. Elsewhere in Lebanon, army troops, backed by Muslim militiamen, exchanged fire with the Christian Lebanese Forces militia around the southern port of Sidon.
Iraq announced today that it had attacked six cities in central and western Iran and a “very large naval target” in the northern part of the Persian Gulf. A statement issued by the official Iranian Republic News Agency said 36 people had been killed and 250 wounded in the latest day of Iraqi attacks. An Iraqi military spokesman said Iraqi warplanes had attacked the city of Isfahan in central Iran, and the western cities of Ilam, Tabriz, Baneh, Marivan and Andimishk, also known as Salehabad.
Singapore’s President C. V. Devan Nair resigned Wednesday, admitting that he had developed a drinking problem and had deceived the Prime Minister for a year about it, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said today. Mr. Lee told a gathering of 79 legislators that he was not aware of Mr. Nair’s alcoholism when he nominated him to the largely ceremonial post in October 1981, but that the diagnosis had been confirmed by a panel of five medical specialists. According to Mr. Lee, the doctors decided that the President, 61 years old, “shows an impairment of judgment and insight and diminished self-control and sense of responsibility,” because of “alcohol superimposed on a longstanding condition caused by alcohol dependency.”
A Chinese torpedo boat and its crew, taken into custody when the boat drifted into South Korean waters last week, were returned to the Chinese navy at a rendezvous in the South China Sea. Also returned were the bodies of six men killed in a mutiny on the torpedo boat, along with two mutineers. South Korean officials said the mutineers were not political defectors and apparently had acted because of personal grievances. The Chinese expressed their gratitude with gifts to the Koreans, including 15 cases of beer and 30 cases of wine. Seoul and Peking do not have diplomatic relations, and the return was arranged in talks between the two sides in Hong Kong.
After years of protesting and posturing by the United States over the spread of Japanese goods in the American market and this nation’s lack of access to the Japanese market, trade relations between the two countries appear to be at the boiling point. The Japanese announced today that they would let their automobile shipments to the United States grow 24.3 percent over the next year. They hoped that this step would defuse some of the acrimony over trade, since they were under no commitment to impose any limit whatsoever. But Congress saw no concession at all in such a figure. Beyond that, the Japanese failed to deal with the principal American objection to their trade policies: their reluctance to open Japanese markets to American goods in the way that the United States is open to Japan.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney conceded today that he had reservations about President Reagan’s invitation to Canada to join in researching an antiballistic missile in space. Mr. Mulroney, during a visit to his home constituency of Manicouigan in Quebec, spoke several times of his “restrained enthusiasm” for the most touchy foreign policy decision he has faced since becoming Prime Minister over six months ago. The Conservative Government has supported as “prudent” the proposal by the Reagan Administration to undertake research on its Strategic Defense Initiative, the so-called “Star Wars” plan to shoot down incoming missiles from space. Mr. Mulroney justified such support tody as a bargaining chip for the United States in its arms control talks with the Soviet Union at Geneva.
Former Deputy Chief Minister Nathaniel Francis has been chosen as the new leader of the British colony of the Turks and Caicos Islands, near the Bahamas, after the arrest of his predecessor, Norman Saunders, on drug-smuggling charges in Miami. Mr. Francis, 73 years old, was named Chief Minister by the colony’s eight-member legislative council Wednesday. Mr. Saunders resigned last Friday.
The Republican chairman and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee clashed today over the scope of a measure approved by the panel Wednesday night to restrict use of American foreign aid money for financing Nicaraguan rebels. The measure, sponsored by Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, the senior Democrat on the committee, was approved on a 9-to-8 vote as an amendment to the $12.8 billion foreign aid package the committee adopted for the fiscal year 1986. According to the committee chairman, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the panel approved language that would bar use of the foreign aid money for either direct or indirect support of the rebels. But according to Senator Pell, the amendment went further, including language that would prohibit the United States from entering into any agreement or understanding under which a recipient of American economic or military assistance or a purchaser of American military goods provides aid to the Nicaraguan rebels.
Honduran President Roberto Suazo Cordova held emergency meetings with his Cabinet and the head of the armed forces in the face of a constitutional conflict between Congress and the Supreme Court. A legislative commission, investigating reports of corruption in the judicial system, told Congress that it has found 14 cases of corruption on the part of five of the nine Supreme Court judges and is considering removing them from office. Suazo Cordova, who urged Hondurans to remain calm, charged that Congress has committed “gross acts of violation” of the constitution.
A New York-based human rights group charged that the U.S.backed Salvadoran military has used indiscriminate attacks, including massacres, to terrorize civilians into fleeing zones controlled by leftist guerrillas. In a 77-page report, the private Americas Watch group said that Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte has been unable to stop the killings and that his government “may be fairly charged with committing war crimes.” The report also denounced the guerrillas for allegedly assassinating right-wing political leaders and executing suspected informers.
A commercial airliner slammed into a fog-shrouded mountain in southern Colombia during a rainstorm, killing all 40 people aboard, authorities said. The wreckage of the Satena Airlines Fokker 28, a twin-engine turboprop serving remote areas of Colombia, was found near Florencia, about 250 miles southwest of Bogota, they said. Searchers who found the wreckage reported no survivors. The crash was the third this year by a Colombian airliner. The plane left Bogota early today on a flight to Florencia and stopped in Neiva and San Vicente de Caguan before crashing.
A Paraguayan judge ordered today that the authorities destroy 141 tons of impounded chemicals that could be used to process eight tons of cocaine. The United States has been seeking such a decision for seven months in an effort to combat international drug traffickers.
Riots over food price increases erupted here for the second day today. Three people have been killed, 1,400 arrested and the windows of several United States Embassy cars smashed. The riots began Wednesday as President Gaafar el-Nimeiry left for talks in the United States.
South Africa’s deputy foreign minister, Louis Nel, said that recent riots in black areas have been directed primarily against moderate blacks who favor peaceful reform and not at the minority white regime and racial segregation. Nel told foreign newsmen and diplomats that much of the violence has been orchestrated by the outlawed African National Congress and the South African Communist Party as part of their strategy to make South Africa ungovernable. He said their goal has been to foster “a revolutionary situation.” He added that “the instigators reject negotiation and consultation.”
A white police officer, testifying before an official inquiry into the killing last week of 19 black people, told a judicial inquiry today that he had feared for his life when a crowd of blacks advanced on his armored vehicle and had no choice but to fire in self-defense. It was the first account by a policeman involved in the shootings, which occurred a week ago today. Further unrest was reported in black townships today, bringing the the death toll in the last week to 37. In the last 15 months, 260 people have died in township violence in South Africa.
G.E. has been barred from contracts with the Pentagon temporarily because of an indictment charging the company with falsifying $800,000 in claims and lying to the Government about work on a nuclear warhead system. The temporary debarment, announced by Air Force Secretary Verne Orr, was the first such action ever taken against a major Defense Department supplier. G.E. is the nation’s fourth-largest military contractor. The Air Force also requested $208 million in voluntary refunds from General Electric and the Pratt & Whitney division of the United Technologies Corporation for making greater-than-expected profits on contracts for supplies of aircraft engine spare parts.
MX missile funds were approved by the House in the final test of a yearlong battle. The members voted 217 to 210 to release $1.5 billion for the purchase of 21 additional weapons. But even backers of President Reagan said that Congress had lost patience with the missile and was unlikely to grant his pending request for $4 billion to build 48 more of the huge, intercontinental weapons. In the brief floor debate today, Representative Vic Fazio, a California Democrat who voted for the new missiles, summed up the mood of the House when he said, “Mr. President, we need you to understand that enough is enough.”
President Reagan receives word that the MX Missile program vote passed 217–210.
President Reagan travelled to New York City and opened the New York Stock Exchange.President Reagan, proclaiming the “age of the entrepreneur,” said that his Administration sought a radical shift in government policy marked by tax simplification and reduced Government spending. “We have lived through the age of big industry and the age of the giant corporation, but I believe that this is the age of the entrepreneur, the age of the individual,” Mr. Reagan told thousands of applauding students on the St. John’s University campus in Queens. “That’s where American prosperity is coming from now, and that’s where it’s going to come from in the future.” On a morning visit to New York City that took Mr. Reagan first to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, where he received an ebullient reception from traders, and then to the St. John’s campus, Mr. Reagan coupled a blunt appeal for enactment of his legislative program with a broad message on the economic “revolution” he seeks to spur.
The STS 51-D launch vehicle with the Space Shuttle orbiter Discovery moves to the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The federal government’s “overly generous” retirement system is “a monster” that will saddle future generations with a debt of at least half a trillion dollars, an Administration official said. Testifying at House appropriations hearings, Donald Devine, director of the Office of Personnel Management, called for cuts in both federal pay and retirement benefits to help cut the federal budget deficit. Congress voted two years ago to put new government employees under the Social Security system, but 2.7 million current employees and 2 million already receiving retirement benefits were not affected by the new law.
Bernhard H. Goetz pleaded not guilty to charges that he tried to murder four young men on a Manhattan subway train. Barry I. Slotnik, a lawyer for Mr. Goetz, said he would move to dismiss the indictment on the ground that a second grand jury was improperly convened.
The reputed underboss of the Gambino organized crime family, Aniello Dellacroce, and nine others were indicted in New York on federal racketeering charges, prosecutors announced. The two-count indictment charged the 10 suspects with running loan-sharking, gambling and hijacking operations over the last 18 years. Some of the suspects were linked directly to three murders, the indictment alleged.
A federal judge in Brownsville, Texas, reduced a sanctuary movement worker’s sentence from one year in prison to 150 days in a halfway house on a conviction of illegally helping two Salvadoran refugees. Jack Elder, 41, had been convicted on six counts in Houston last month and had refused the terms of a two-year probation.
Doctors removed a breathing tube from Murray P. Haydon’s throat and placed it directly into his windpipe in a minor operation that allows the artificial heart patient to talk and take food through his mouth. The procedure, a tracheotomy, is common for persons who have been breathing with the aid of a respirator for 10 days, as Haydon had, said Robert Irvine, director of public relations for Humana Inc., which owns Humana Hospital Audubon in Louisville, Kentucky.
Ground workers at Pan American World Airways began returning to their jobs yesterday, with the airline aiming to have 82 percent of its scheduled flights in operation within a month. The Transport Workers Union approved a three-year contract with Pan Am Wednesday.
A federal appeals court in New York ruled that stringent security measures did not prejudice the trial of four persons convicted in prosecutions arising from the bloody 1981 robbery of a Brink’s armored car which led to the deaths of two policemen and a guard. The court upheld the September, 1983, convictions of Sekou Odinga, Silvia Baraldini, Cecil Ferguson and Edward Joseph, who prosecutors said were members of a violent ring of radicals. The three-judge panel said that not publicly disclosing the names of the jurors did not deprive the four of a fair trial.
Bruce C. Pierce, reputed head of a militant white racist group who was arrested this week on four federal warrants, has begun serving a two-year sentence in the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta for counterfeiting, a prison official said today. In Seattle, an assistant United States attorney, David E. Wilson, said Mr. Pierce, 30 years old, would immediately begin serving his sentence on a 1983 Washington counterfeiting case.
Ten Puerto Rican police officers were found guilty in San Juan of committing perjury during a high-level investigation of the 1978 slayings of two independence advocates. The charges of perjury and obstruction of justice against the police officers stemmed from 1983 hearings in the Puerto Rico Senate in which three other officers testified that the two youths were killed by a police firing squad after surrendering. Police officially have contended that Carlos Soto Arrivi, 18, and Arnaldo Dario Rosado, 24, were killed in a shoot-out after police surprised them while they were preparing to blow up a television transmission tower.
Medicare will not run out of money until 1998, according to estimates issued by the Reagan Administration. To guarantee the solvency of the Medicare trust fund over the next 25 years, the report said, outlays must be reduced 19 percent or revenue increased 24 percent. Margaret M. Heckler, Secretary of Health and Human Services, said the estimates showed “significant new gains in the near-term solvency of Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund.”
Supplemental job benefits would be extended with reduced benefits for new recipients under a bill approved by a House panel.
Changes in rules on vinyl chloride have been proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. It said it wanted to modify regulations banning emissions of the cancer-causing substance to make them easier to enforce and therefore more likely to protect health.
Cuts in aid to mass transit by the Reagan Administration have caused financial problems for many municipalities. Many Sun Belt cities have retreated from plans to construct costly rail systems that would parallel urban highway routes.
Pamela Hamilton, the young cancer victim whose parents lost a fight to prevent her from receiving medical treatment on religious grounds, died today, “peacefully at her home in the company of her family,” a doctor said. The 14-year-old girl lapsed into a coma this morning and died at 2 PM, said Dr. Brian Corden, director of pediatric hematology and oncology at Chattanooga’s T. C. Thompson Children’s Hospital.
Four feet of snow and near-blizzard conditions blasted the West, trapping truckers on roads and gamblers in Nevada casinos. There were 48 inches of snow in the Utah mountains. Near-blizzard conditions were reported in Montana, where 150 miles of road were closed, and North Dakota, where deep drifts blocked highways. A heavy snow warning was issued for the Colorado high country. In Nevada, the storm, which brought four feet of snow to the mountains, was blamed for the death of a Reno man whose wheelchair got stuck in the snow at the end of a ramp outside his house.
International Cometary Explorer measures solar wind ahead of Halley’s Comet.
Marc Chagall died at his home in Vence, France, at the age of 97. Chagall was for 75 years a prominent member of the international art scene, the originator of images that had an almost universal potency and a celebrated master of large-scale commissions.
Neil Simon’s play “Biloxi Blues” premieres in NYC.
The April 1st issue of Sports Illustrated contains a fictitious article about a Mets pitching prospect named Sidd Finch, whose fastball has been timed at 168 MPH. Author George Plimpton offers bogus quotes from real-life members of the Mets, as well as several staged photos, and fools readers nationwide.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1260.71 (-4.2)
Born:
Stan Wawrinka, Swiss tennis player (3-time Grand Slam winner), in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Chris Long, NFL defensive end (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 51-Patriots, Super Bowl 52-Eagles; St. Louis Rams, New England Patriots, Philadelphia Eagles), son of NFL star Howie Long, in Santa Monica, California.
Mark Melancon, MLB pitcher (All-Star, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2021; New York Yankees, Houston Astros, Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nationals, San Francisco Giants, Atlanta Braves, San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks), in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
Died:
Marc Chagall [Moise Shagal], 97, Jewish Belarusan-French modernist painter and stained glass artist (La Mariée; I and the Village).
History Diaries 