President Reagan said today that he had received a reply from Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, to his invitation for a summit meeting. In an interview published in the Tuesday issue of The Washington Post, Mr. Reagan said that the Soviet leader had answered the invitation he extended via Vice President Bush last month, and that the United States and the Soviet Union were discussing the specifics of a meeting. “I wrote, and he answered, and we’re in negotiations,” the President said. He declined to elaborate on the contents of the letter from Mr. Gorbachev, but added that he was “hopeful that we can have such a meeting.”
Confidential Soviet documents obtained by French intelligence indicate that Moscow’s acquisition of Western technical data has saved the Soviet Union millions of dollars in arms research, according to reports here. The documents, according to Le Monde, were key elements in the French decision two years ago to expel 47 Soviet diplomats accused of espionage. The newspaper said the documents had been obtained by French intelligence inside the Soviet Union and had been used by French officials to substantiate the spying charges in private conversations with the Russians.
Polish fuel and energy costs rose as much as 32% as the second stage of three government-imposed price increases went into effect. The outlawed Solidarity union movement had urged workers to stage protests, such as marches after work and meetings in factories, but apparently failed to mobilize support. The price of coal rose 20%, electricity went up 22% and natural gas rose 32%.
Thousands of demonstrators rallied outside Parliament today to protest the Danish Government’s attempt over the weekend to legislate an end to the country’s worst postwar labor dispute. Danish radio, itself hit by disruptions throughout the day, estimated that the demonstration had drawn some 100,000 people. The protesters opposed a package of bills enacted by Parliament late Saturday that outlawed the weeklong strike and lockout, while allowing a slight rise in wages over two years. Despite the emergency legislation, workers stayed off the job. Some 320,000 workers throughout Denmark went on strike on March 24.
Israeli border police shot and wounded four Palestinian students during a stone-throwing demonstration outside Bethlehem University, Israeli military sources and a Palestinian news agency reported. The demonstration was held in memory of Land Day — the day in 1976 when Israeli security forces killed six Israeli Arabs who were protesting Israeli land expropriations. The four students were reportedly wounded in the hands and legs. The shooting was said to have started after about 50 of the students began throwing stones at a jeep carrying Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli government has strengthened its grip on the occupied West Bank to the point that it owns or manages 52% of the land and has made Palestinian communities a “patchwork of alienated islands,” an Israeli researcher said. Meron Benvenisti, head of an independent West Bank research group, said the territory is in effect being split into “two regions divided on ethnic lines.”
Egyptian security officials said they uncovered a plot “guided personally” by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to destabilize the Cairo government, adding that five Egyptians have been arrested as conspirators. They added that the plotters planned to recruit Egyptians unhappy with the government of President Hosni Mubarak and send them to European countries to be trained by Libyans in the use of firearms and explosives. Meanwhile, the Libyan news agency quoted a Qaddafi speech in which he urged Syrian, Iraqi, and Lebanese guerrillas to use violence, including suicide attacks, to gain control in Mideast countries.
The United States warned Iran that it would suffer the consequences if abducted Americans being held in Lebanon were executed, Reagan Administration officials said. Five Americans in Lebanon are still being held prisoner by Shiite extremists, who the United States believes have close links to Iran. The warning was conveyed in a message from Secretary of State George P. Shultz through the Swiss Government, which represents United States interests in Iran. The message stemmed from concern that Shiite Muslims holding the Americans were planning to execute some of them. Officials would not provide the exact date of Mr. Shultz’s letter, but said it was sent in the last six weeks. It was said to be firm, but unspecific as to what actions might be taken.
A shepherd found the body of a missing Dutch priest today at the bottom of a ravine in the Bekaa, Lebanon’s eastern valley, a Christian radio station reported. The Rev. Nicolas Kluiters, a 44-year- old Jesuit, disappeared March 14 while traveling in the area. A note found in his car said he had been abducted by the Vengeance Party, a group not known previously.
The Lebanese Government prepared today to dispatch more troops to southern Lebanon in an effort to halt two weeks of clashes around the Mediterranean port of Sidon. The fighting has claimed 40 lives and left 40,000 homeless.
Iraq said its jets raided Iran’s capital today for the 13th time in 18 days. But in Tehran, an Iranian official said the attacks would not drive his government to the negotiating table. An Iraqi military communique said the predawn attack on Teheran followed a “devastating raid” by an Iraqi warplane seven hours earlier. The official Iranian press agency confirmed the attack today and later quoted an Iranian war communique as reporting 22 civilians killed and 76 wounded. But the Iranian agency, in a report monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus, and received here, asserted that the earlier attack failed when antiaircraft fire drove off the lone Iraqi jet fighter.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz will meet with two leaders of Cambodia’s non-Communist guerrilla forces April 10 in Washington, the State Department said. The visit by Son Sann, president of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, and Prince Norodom Ranariddh, representing a group headed by his father, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was described as private. But Son Sann has been quoted as saying the visit is aimed at developing support for a $5-million aid proposal for the rebels.
U.S. officials, opening a conference on narcotics in East Asia, called for greater international cooperation to curb surging heroin trade in the region. Officials from U.S. embassies throughout the area were in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for three days of talks on drugs and their impact on terrorism and insurgencies. “The grower-to-user narcotics chain must be broken,” John Monjo, deputy assistant secretary of state, said, urging that pressure be applied “at all points in the chain.”
An attempt to blunt anger in Congress over this country’s lack of access to the Japanese market was made by the Reagan Administration with a statement that Japan has made “new commitments on trade issues.” Talks in Tokyo over the weekend between American and Japanese trade representatives left many issues unresolved, according to White House officials, but they made it clear that Japanese leaders had tentatively agreed to meet American demands for greater access to the Japanese market, particularly in telecommunications.
One of four elusive witnesses to the murder of Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. has been found by sheriffs, officials reported. Ramon Layoso, 58, a private security guard, will testify when the trial of the accused assassins, including armed forces chief Fabian C. Ver, resumes April 10, they said. Aquino was killed Aug. 21, 1983, on arrival at Manila airport after three years of self-imposed exile. Layoso’s testimony is considered vital to the prosecution’s contention that Aquino was killed by members of his military escort.
A promise to unify El Salvador was made by President Jose Napoleon Duarte, whose Christian Democratic Party appeared to be almost certain of victory in legislative elections. He invited his opponents “to participate in the democratic process and the process of confronting the crisis in which we live.” “I will offer them understanding and support,” Mr. Duarte said in an interview at the presidential residence. “I will offer my hand to help them.” Confounding pundits, analysts and a powerful coalition of conservative opponents, the Christian Democratic Party of Mr. Duarte appears to have taken almost 54 percent of the vote across the nation in the elections on Sunday.
Thousands of mourners chanting anti-government slogans turned the funeral march today for two slain Communist Party activists into the largest protest against military rule under Chile’s five-month-old state of siege. Two black station wagons carried the coffins of Manuel Guerrero, a teachers’ union leader, and Jose Manuel Parada, a human rights worker, from the capital’s Roman Catholic cathedral to the cemetery. The men were abducted Friday, and their bodies were found Saturday. As they followed a 20-block downtown route, the mourners chanted, blaming the Government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet for the killings and calling for a general strike. Reporters put the number of people who gathered for the march at 8,000. Their ranks swelled during the protest and Radio Chilena, a station owned by the Roman Catholic Church, put the final total at 15,000. Political protests are banned under the state of siege imposed November 6, but the authorities allowed the march at the request of the church.
President Reagan meets with the President of the Democratic Republic of Sudan Gaafar Mohamed Nimeiri. The Reagan Administration moved today to help the Sudan by releasing $67 million in United States assistance that had been withheld while Washington pressed the Sudanese for a series of austerity measures. A senior Administration official said the release of the aid, announced after a White House meeting between President Reagan and President Gaafar al- Nimeiry of the Sudan, signaled that the Administration is persuaded that the Sudan’s actions are sufficient to satisfy Washington and international development organizations. The White House said in a statement announcing the aid release, “It is clear that the Government of Sudan is taking the steps that are required to bring its economy under control while it is faced with the added difficulties of drought and refugee emergencies.”
Samuel K. Doe, the head of state of Liberia, reported that assassins led by the deputy chief of his personal guard poured machine-gun fire into his jeep today in an attempt to kill him. General Doe said the vehicle crashed into a lamp post, but he escaped injury. The official government news agency said that Colonel Moses M. D. Flanzamaton fled after the attack early today and that security forces were searching for him. General Doe said two bodyguards traveling with him in the jeep were wounded in the attack, on the grounds of the presidential mansion, as they returned from a weekend outing. General Doe has made many accusations of plots against him since he seized power in April 1980, but this was the first report of an attempt on his life.
Black police officers in South Africa are finding their position among their fellow blacks more precarious than ever. About 40 percent of the 45,000- member South African police force is black. As unrest has grown, four black policemen have been slain and 56 have been wounded, according to government figures.
The police in Johannesburg opened fire today with tear gas and rubber bullets in a black township near the synthetic fuel plant of Sasolburg in a continuation of the unrest that has taken root since last September. A police spokesman said there were no deaths in the latest incident, which occurred near a plant that converts coal into oil. In another incident, in the gold-mining town of Welkom, the spokesman said, two people were injured after a crowd attacked the black driver of a government vehicle, who opened fire with a revolver.
Production of 21 more MX missiles in the fiscal 1986 budget was approved by the Senate Armed Services subcommittee, but it rejected President Reagan’s request for 48. The vote by the Republican-controlled Subcommittee on Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces, was the first assault on the President’s missile-building program after he had a series of heady victories in Congress over the last two weeks. Voting 7 to 4 in a closed session, the subcommittee turned back a proposal by Senator Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia, to cut the program more deeply in the 1986 fiscal year, producing only 12 of the intercontinental missiles and slashing the planned size of the MX missile force to 40 from 100. The sources said the subcommittee also resisted proposals to make major cuts in the President’s missile defense research program, known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars.”
President Reagan meets with Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.
A group of House Democrats, answering what they say is a cry for fairness from across the country, proposed raising income taxes at least $15 billion per year — but only for corporations and the rich. “This is truly a Democratic plan, with a capital D,” said Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York). Schumer is the sponsor of a bill that would toughen the way corporations and individuals compute their adjusted gross income and would impose a 25% minimum tax on those with adjusted incomes of more than $100,000.
The White House indicated that it might compromise with Senate Republicans on defense spending for next fiscal year, but budget talks between the two sides hit another snag-how much to spend on agriculture. White House aides met with Senate GOP leaders for nearly three hours but reached no agreement. Defense was still a major hang-up, and senators emerged talking about disagreements on farm programs as well. President Reagan wanted to cut $6.2 billion from agriculture in fiscal 1986, but the GOP-led Senate Budget Committee voted to freeze programs at current levels.
The Food and Drug Administration said that it needs 60 more days to determine if 10 widely used food and drug dyes are a threat to public health, a decision that it has been weighing for more than 24 years. The FDA said that it has issued another extension of its decision deadline to June 3. The stated reason is the same as for past extensions, a spokesman said; that more time is needed to review the scientific data. The extension comes although the FDA is the target of a lawsuit by a public interest group, in which the courts have been asked to step in and order a ban of the dyes as dangerous to public health.
A cut in starting pay for newly hired workers compared with the starting wage that was given to established employees, has been accepted in union wage agreements between the International Teamsters and major trucking concerns, and Pan American World Airways and its flight attendants.
A recent issue of The Jackson Advocate, a black newspaper in Mississippi, carried an article and a photograph reporting that Fred L. Banks Jr., the newest black county judge, had been sworn in by Justice Reuben Anderson, the first black member of the Mississippi Supreme Court. Next to it was an article with the headline, “Cross Burned – Youth Abducted and Beaten in Strife-Torn Durant.” Those articles symbolize the contrasts in racial developments in present-day Mississippi. Interviews across the state found new and changing attitudes, on the one hand, and a throwback to the old order, on the other. There have been extensive political gains, most people say, but individual relationships and contact between the races have lagged. The interviews found that 20 years after some of the biggest victories of the civil rights movement, Mississippi stands as a reminder of both the progress that has been made and the problems that remain. The fact that many people, blacks and whites, died so that blacks could use a restroom in a public place or walk through the front door of a restaurant and be served is somewhat lost, or at least blurred, by the amount of change.
The first Cuban refugees from the 1980 Mariel boatlift were granted permanent residency status Monday, the initial step toward becoming U.S. citizens, immigration officials said in Miami. About 125,000 refugees who arrived in Florida as part of the boatlift from the Cuban port of Mariel had been in legal limbo, classified as “entrants,” until the federal government reactivated the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act last year. An official said that about 100,000 refugees registered for the residency status, and processing should be completed in about a year.
For six months, several hundred coal miners have waged an emotional and sometimes violent strike against subsidiaries of the A. T. Massey Coal Company near the dusty town of Williamson, a stone’s throw from the Kentucky border. Last week the miners were fined $200,000 by a Mingo County circuit judge for violating a court order limiting the number of pickets at two coal plants they struck Oct. 1. Officials of the United Mine Workers pledged to appeal the ruling and to fight until their contract demands were met. The fine stemmed from activities supervised from a Williamson motel by union leaders from Washington. The demonstrations included 1960’s style sit-down strikes, church services at the mine gates and dramatic parades of 1,000 flag-waving miners marching six abreast. The circuit judge, Elliott E. Maynard, determined that the parades violated his order limiting to 10 the number of pickets at each plant entrance.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that police must adhere to a state law that sets stricter rules for search warrants than the standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court. The state’s high court, in a 5-2 decision, said that the standard set for searches by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1983 ruling was “unacceptably shapeless and permissive.” The justices also ruled that Massachusetts law, backed by a state constitution older than its federal counterpart, requires stricter rules before police can use a search warrant to investigate an alleged crime.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said today that documents seized in the arrest of a heavily armed white supremacist could lead to the capture of more fugitives in a neo-Nazi group suspected of killing a Jewish talk show host in Denver. The bureau agents analyzed documents taken in Saturday’s arrest of David Lane, a white supremist in a group known as The Order, along with weapons and paramilitary equipment. Robert Pence, FBI chief in North Carolina, said he hoped the documents would help the bureau determine the workings of The Order. Mr. Lane, 46 years old, is a suspect in the slaying of the radio personality Alan Berg at his Denver home June 18, 1984, the police said.
Racial quotas were illegally used to promote blacks in the District of Columbia Fire Department, a Federal district judge ruled in striking down the department’s affirmative action plan. Judge Charles R. Richey said his ruling addressed a question never decided by the Supreme Court: whether a governmental unit may voluntarily use racial preferences in employment decisions.
Conservative fundamentalists are threatening to withdraw financial support from the Southern Baptist Convention if their candidate for president is not re-elected in June, the church’s news agency said today. James Draper, who served as president of the 14.3-million-member denomination from 1982 to 1984, said his church, the First Baptist Church of Euless, Texas, and others might withdraw their support if Charles Stanley, current president and a leader of the fundamentalist forces in the church, was not re-elected at the convention’s annual meeting in Dallas.
A moderate earthquake was reported in northwestern Montana early today but caused no significant damage, the authorities said. Michael Stickney of Montana Tech’s earthquake center in Butte said the earthquake was reported to have been felt in Kalispell, Missoula, Great Falls, Helena and other towns. It caused a break in a water main in east Helena. The earthquake registered 4.6 on the Richter scale of ground motion as recorded on seismographs.
47th NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship: In a major upset, Villanova beats Georgetown, 66–64; the Wildcats are the lowest-seeded team (8th) to ever win the tournament. In what will surely be remembered as one of the most improbable outcomes in the history of the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament, the Wildcats, who failed to finish in the nation’s Top 20 in any poll this season, completed their emotion- filled postseason by playing the elusive “perfect game” at the perfect time. They upset the favored Hoyas, 66-64, to win the school’s first basketball championship ever before a national television audience and a capacity crowd of 23,124 shocked spectators at Rupp Arena. In Georgetown, Villanova was facing a team that had harrassed opponents into shooting 39 percent from the field this season, the lowest in the country. But the Wildcats were not intimidated, and shot a tournament-record 79 percent from the field in the contest. They made 22 of 28 shots over all, including an incredible 9 of 10 in the second half. In addition, they made 22 of 27 free throws.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1272.75 (+5.97)
Born:
Daniel Murphy, MLB second baseman, first baseman, and third baseman (All-Star, 2014, 2016, 2017; New York Mets, Washington Nationals, Chicago Cubs, Colorado Rockies), in Jacksonville, Florida.
Gustavo Ayón, Mexican NBA center and power forward (New Orleans Hornets, Orlando Magic, Milwaukee Bucks, Atlanta Hawks), in Tepic, Mexico.
Shay Doron, Israeli WNBA guard (New York Liberty), in Ramat Hasharon, Israel.
Beth Tweddle, English gymnast (Olympic bronze medal, 2012), in Johannesburg, South Africa.
More photographs here: https://www.facebook.com/mark.olivares.71
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