Easter Sunday.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev is prepared to hold a summit meeting with President Reagan, he announced. The Soviet leader also announced a moratorium on the deployment of Soviet medium-range missiles in Europe, and called on the United States to respond with a similar freeze. In his first major foreign policy statement since taking office a month ago, Mr. Gorbachev said the Soviet Union, “starting with this day,” would halt deployment of its SS-20 medium- range missiles, as well as “other reply measures in Europe.” He said the moratorium would hold until November, when Moscow would see whether the United States had responded by stopping deployment of Pershing 2 and cruise missiles in the nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The freeze on medium range missiles proposed by Mr. Gorbachev was dismissed by the White House as an effort to maintain Soviet nuclear superiority. The Soviet leader said in an interview with the Communist Party newspaper Pravda that the freeze would last until November. Mr. Gorbachev also said he was ready to meet President Reagan. Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said at a news conference that Mr. Gorbachev’s statement on a summit meeting was a minor part of the interview and that a time and place for the meeting had still not been determined.
The public exchange between Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the White House today signaled that despite talk of a Soviet- American summit meeting the sharp political differences between the two sides may intensify in coming months. What particularly aroused the ire of the White House was what it sees as another effort by the Soviet Union to stop the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies from deploying new missiles to offset what they contend is a Soviet advantage in Europe. The exchange also suggested that the projected meeting between President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev was becoming linked with progress in the arms talks even though neither side has made an explicit connection between the two. Mr. Gorbachev seemed to offer a conciliatory hand to the United States by confirming that he had agreed in principle to meet with Mr. Reagan. But his proposal on medium-range missiles in the same interview with Pravda seemed to officials here designed to cause dissension in NATO and undercut American interests in Europe.
The Dutch Government sees no reason to alter its stance on the stationing of cruise missiles in the Netherlands as a result of a Soviet moratorium on the deployment of SS-20 missiles in Europe, a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman in The Hague said tonight. The Netherlands is the only country that has yet to decide whether to honor its commitment to accept NATO medium-range weapons. Under current arrangements, the Government is scheduled to decide in November whether to deploy 48 Tomahawk cruise missiles on its soil, according to a 1979 NATO decision. Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek is scheduled to fly to Moscow on Tuesday to elaborate the Dutch position to Soviet leaders.
Thousands of nationalists marched in cities throughout Northern Ireland to mark the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Dublin that led to the creation of the independent Irish Republic. Police found and removed two homemade bombs at Milltown Cemetery in West Belfast, close to where nationalist Gerry Adams later spoke during an Easter Rebellion parade. A police statement said the authorities searched the cemetery after two men were seen acting suspiciously there. An army bomb disposal squad removed two bombs that apparently had been set to explode while security forces were there, the statement said. Adams, president of the outlawed Irish Republican Army’s legal political arm, Sinn Fein, blamed the bombs on “pro-British elements.”
Pope John Paul II, invoking the 40th anniversary this year of the end of World War II, delivered an Easter message today in praise of “the men and women in each country who offered their lives in sacrifice for the right cause, the cause of the dignity of the human person.” “They faced death as defenseless victims, offered in holocaust, or defending with their arms the free way of life,” the Pope told a crowd of more than 200,000 gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “They fought not to answer violence with violence or hatred with hatred but to affirm a right and a freedom for themselves and others, also for the children of those who were then the oppressors.” John Paul, resplendent in gold robes and a gold-encrusted white mitre, recalled Nazism as “a mad imperialist ideology” and condemned the atrocities it bred, including the mass killing of Jews.
Two people were killed and 10 wounded, including three at an Easter service, in fighting around Beirut and the southern Lebanese port of Sidon. Both deaths were caused by sniper fire into Christian East Beirut, reportedly touched off when East Beirut residents fired tracer bullets into the air to mark Easter. In the Sidon area, fighting between Christian militiamen in the hills and Muslim and Palestinian fighters on the city’s eastern outskirts entered its 10th day.
Egyptian officials expressed relief today that the new military Government in the Sudan appeared to be pro-Egyptian, pro-Western and ostensibly committed to a prompt transfer of power to civilian democratic rule. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt pledged support for the new Government and disclosed that he had already exchanged messages with Gen. Siwar el-Dahab, 51 years old, the Sudan’s former Defense Minister who is the new leader. Egypt stood “solidly beside its brothers” in the Sudan, Mr. Mubarak said. In a statement read to reporters by the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Esmat Abdel-Meguid, President Mubarak also reiterated his previous warning against any direct or indirect foreign intervention in the Sudan, a threat aimed at neighboring Libya, officials said.
The United Nations Secretary General arrived in Tehran today for talks with Iranian leaders in an effort to help end the four-and-a-half-year war with Iraq. “I have come to Tehran only to find out more about the stance of the Islamic Republic of Iran concerning the war,” the Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, said on his arrival, according to I.R.N.A., the Iranian news agency. “I hope this trip will produce positive results and provide me the chance to have an exchange of views with officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Mr. Perez de Cuellar is expected to meet with Iran’s President, Hojatolislam Ali Khamenei, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati and other officials.
Vietnamese forces recaptured a Cambodian guerrilla base near the Thai border in a two-hour battle, killing six rebels and wounding 35, Thai military sources said. The Vietnamese overran the camp at Nong Chan and drove out about 1,000 rebels, the sources said. Several hundred Khmer People’s National Liberation Front guerrillas later mounted a series of counterattacks, the sources added. The Vietnamese first captured the camp at the start of their dry-season offensive last November, but the guerrillas retook it a month later.
A Chinese delegation arrived in Moscow for the sixth round of negotiations on normalizing SinoSoviet relations, the first such talks since Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev took power last month. Tass news agency said Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Leonid F. Ilyichev and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Qian Qichen are scheduled to start talks Tuesday amid signs that both sides are determined to work toward rapprochement after a 20-year rift.
Two former chief White House economists, warning that retaliation against Japan could set off a global trade war, said today that the strong dollar was responsible for the American trade deficit. The two economists — Alan Greenspan, who served under President Ford, and Charles L. Schultze, an adviser to President Carter — said on the ABC News program “This Week” that they opposed proposals in Congress aimed at forcing Japan to open its markets to more American products. “It’s a no-win situation,” Mr. Greenspan said. “It may be satisfying to bash the Japanese,” he added, “but surely it is we who are hurt more than they, and it strikes me that it’s a very shortsighted policy.” Mr. Schultze said advocates of retaliation were making Japan “the scapegoat” for the inability of the United States to cut its budget deficit. “That’s what’s fundamentally driving the dollar up, making it terribly hard to sell U.S. goods abroad and cheaper for foreigners to sell here,” Mr. Schultze said. He said Japan’s trade policies were not “the main cause” of the American trade deficit. Appearing on the same program, Peter Sato, economic affairs minister at the Japanese Embassy, said he was sure his nation would agree to trade concessions. “We are prepared to talk about anything you raise,” he said.
Australian motorcycle gangs fought with police for several hours at a motorcycle race track west of Sydney, leaving 57 officers injured and 74 people under arrest, authorities said. The clashes occurred during the annual Easter weekend racing program at Bathurst, 125 miles west of Sydney, attended by 30,000 motorcycle fans and 250 police officers. Gang members hurled bricks, gasoline bombs, bottles and other projectiles at police and each other, police said. Seven officers and one fan were taken to a hospital for treatment.
Several thousand people held a rally on this Caribbean island today to demand an end to three and a half centuries of French rule. The rally marked the final day of a three-day conference that brought together independence movements from most of France’s overseas possessions. A crowd of about 4,000 assembled at an abandoned sugar mill in northern Guadeloupe at the call of the local independence party, the Popular Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe.
San Salvador Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas heaped unprecedented praise on the nation’s army for its defense of the March 31 legislative and municipal election results in the face of rightist attempts to have them annulled. “There have been few times, perhaps, where we had seen in the armed forces’ top leadership such a clear profession of democratic faith,” he said. The praise was seen as a morale boost for the armed forces and an acknowledgement that the military — the traditional power in El Salvador and a frequently accused violator of human rights — is changing for the better.
President-elect Tancredo Neves of Brazil has inflammation in his lungs but is in otherwise good condition in his fourth week in a Sao Paulo hospital, his doctors said. They added that Neves, 75, who had been in critical condition, was free of abdominal infection. “Now it is only a matter of recuperation,” Dr. Joao Baptista de Rezende said. Neves has had five operations in three weeks, forcing him to delay his presidential inauguration.
The Sudan’s pro-Western stance will remain unchanged, its new military ruler said. General Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab, who led the coup that overthrew the Government of President Gaafar el-Nimeiry Saturday, met separately in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, with United States, Egyptian and Saudi Arabian diplomats. Officials in Washington said he had reassured the diplomats that he would keep the Sudan on a pro-Western course.
“Forces of darkness” threaten South Africa from the outside, President P. W. Botha warned in an Easter address to a huge throng of blacks who belong to a Christian sect. “We shall not tolerate people who come from far away with evil minds to kill and injure innocent people,” Mr. Botha said, apparently alluding to the African National Congress, an exiled guerrilla group blamed for unrest in South Africa.
The world’s birth rate has fallen from 29 to 27 births per 1,000 people since 1983, largely because of sharp curbs on China’s population growth, a private population study group has reported. The group, the Population Reference Bureau, said China was currently averaging 19 births per 1,000 residents, down from 23 only two years ago. The new statistics, estimating the world’s current population at 4.8 billion, were published in the bureau’s annual World Population Data Sheet. The study put the annual world population increase at 1.7 percent, down from 1.8 percent in 1983. The fastest population growth is in Africa, where the birth rate is 45 per 1,000, the study said.
After almost 36 years of delay and intermittent debate, the Senate is nearing a vote in which it is expected to consent to United States ratification of the United Nations treaty condemning genocide. The treaty, which has its roots in Nazi Germany’s mass killing of Jews, has been accepted by 96 nations, including the Eastern European bloc led by the Soviet Union. The Senate came close to approval of the treaty last October but did not act after a few conservative opponents threatened a filibuster. Instead the Senate voted 87 to 2 for a nonbinding resolution that supported the principles of the convention and said the Senate should act “expeditiously” on the treaty this session.
Military reorganization was opposed by top Pentagon leaders in letters to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the five members of the Joints Chief of Staff, opposing proposals for reorganization, rejected assertions that the current system is paralyzed by rivalries among the services. But a somewhat different viewpoint was expressed in letters by the commanders of United States combat forces overseas.
Artificial heart patient William J. Schroeder’s first full day outside the hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, was filled with the routine of ordinary life that the experimental surgery of 133 days earlier was designed to give him. Schroeder, 53, was moved from the hospital, where he and his wife had lived since his November 25 implant, to a four-unit apartment across the street modified for Schroeder’s needs. There he had his first home-cooked meal since receiving his bionic heart — breakfast cooked by his wife. Humana Hospital Audubon’s other mechanical heart patient, Murray P. Haydon, remained on a respirator but showed continued progress.
Actor David Soul, militant minister D. Douglas Roth and two other labor activists were arrested at an affluent Pittsburgh church for trying to lay scrap metal on the altar in an Easter protest over massive layoffs in Pittsburgh’s steel industry. Soul, who starred in the TV series “Starsky and Hutch;” Roth, Mike Bonn and Darrell Becker were charged with disorderly conduct, failure to disperse and defiant trespass. The scrap metal represented “the mills that have been destroyed because of the actions of your church,” Roth told the worshippers at Shadyside Presbyterian Church. Roth and other activists blame corporate leaders, some of whom attend the church, for contributing to unemployment by shutting down plants and investing overseas.
The Mormon Church in Salt Lake City announced that a special day of fasting by its members raised more than $6 million in donations to aid famine victims in Ethiopia and other African nations. Elder Gordon B. Hinckley of the church’s governing body told delegates at the 155th annual Mormon conference that $4.3 million already has been distributed through international relief agencies. He said the rest of the money would be spent in countries where the church’s research determines the greatest need exists.
More than 100 students at Columbia University in New York marked a fourth day of protesting the school’s investments in companies doing business with South Africa by sending telegrams to the university’s president and trustees. The demonstrators, who have blocked the main entrance to an administration building since Thursday, want the school to divest itself of about $30 million in endowment funds tied to South Africa to protest that nation’s apartheid policy.
Looting and vandalism erupted in downtown Philadelphia as crowds of youths left theaters showing martial arts films, and as many as 18 persons were arrested, authorities said. Mayor W. Wilson Goode, calling the melee “a case of too many young people being in one area at one time,” said police estimated that 5,000 youths were in a three-block area during the hour-long disturbance. Goode and Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor said they did not know what caused the rampage, but Goode noted that the violence began when three movies — “The Last Dragon,” another martial arts film and “Beverly Hills Cop” — ended at about the same time.
Rita M. Lavelle, former assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency’s toxic waste fund, says she now recalls being told that the agency delayed awarding a grant for political reasons. Miss Lavelle, dismissed from her E.P.A. post two years ago, was interviewed last week in Washington, D.C. Miss Lavelle said Anne McGill Burford, who headed the agency, wanted in mid-1982 to delay the cleanup grant for the Stringfellow toxic waste dump in Riverside County. She added Mrs. Burford feared that Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. might get the credit if the cleanup plan were successful, and she did not want to help his bid for the Senate. Governor Brown was defeated. Mrs. Burford, who resigned two years ago, testified at a Congressional hearing that she delayed the Stringfellow grant because she had some doubts whether it fully complied with E.P.A.’s regulations.
Officials are investigating reports that the fire at the Wilberg Mine that killed 27 people last December was caused by arson resulting from jealousy over an attempt to set a coal-production record. Sheriff Lamar Guymon of Emery County said Friday that miners involved in such an effort would receive bonuses. He added that he did not believe the fire was set to hurt anybody, but to stop the record from becoming a reality because not everyone would share the bonuses. But a spokesman for the Emery Mining Company, operator of the mine, said when the production exceeded certain standards, a bonus was given on a monthly basis without favoring one section in the mine over another.
A four-mile-wide fire swept up North Carolina’s parched coast, scorching 80,000 acres of woodlands, but firefighters made a determined stand at the Alligator River and saved the town of Gum Neck, a crossroads community of 200 persons. Fires have gutted 50 homes and four businesses in North Carolina, causing an estimated $4million damage, and injured 30 persons. In South Carolina, two fires covering 5,000 acres were near containment, state forestry officials said. Forestry officials in Virginia said that two blazes, which are still burning, have scorched about 10,000 acres.
Doctors are marketing their services to meet increasing competition. Doctors, facing what is increasingly described as a glut of physicians, are marketing their services as never before. In the most noticeable aspect of this trend, some have even brought their offices to their patients, opening free-standing clinics in suburban shopping malls. These clinics, virtually unheard of 10 years ago, are booming. Experts say family physicians, obstetricians, pediatricians and internists, the doctors people turn to first when they need health care, have had to try a variety of new approaches to keep up.
Movie makers are leaving California in increasing numbers for other states. Of the 165 feature films shot in the United States in 1984, only 56 were made entirely in California. Eighty were shot totally outside California, and 29 were filmed both inside and outside the United States.
First live telecast of the Easter Parade in New York.
Nabisco Dinah Shore Women’s Golf, Mission Hills CC: Alice Miller shoots a final round 67 (−5) to win her only major title, 3 strokes ahead of Jan Stephenson of Australia.
New Jersey Generals’ running back Hershel Walker rushes for USFL record 233 yards.
Born:
Humza Yousaf, Scottish politician (SNP leader and Scottish First Leader elect, first Muslim to lead a major UK political party), in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Saad Lamjarred, Moroccan pop singer-songwriter (“Lm3allem”), in Rabat, Morocco.
Died:
Carl Schmitt, 96, German political theorist and prominent Nazi (Verfassungslehre).
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