Strict U.S. conditions for a summit meeting will be set, according to Donald T. Regan, the White House chief of staff. He said that the groundwork and an agenda would have to be complete before President Reagan would meet with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the new Soviet leader. In laying out what amounted to the conditions that the Russians would have to meet before talks could be held, the White House appeared today to be moving away from its recent suggestions that a meeting should take place as quickly as possible, even with no prearranged agenda. Mr. Regan, echoing comments made Monday by State Department officials, told reporters that President Reagan was against “just having meetings for meetings’ sake.” “We think that it would be a big letdown,” Mr. Regan said, “not only for Americans, but for the rest of the world, if the two leaders were to meet and accomplish nothing.” The President appeared last month to have been moving away from his long-held insistence on firm ground rules for a summit meeting when he sent Mr. Gorbachev a letter proposing a meeting.
Managers of Soviet shops or factories responsible for selling shoddy goods now risk labor-camp sentences, the Soviet Supreme Court said, directing lower courts to widen criminal responsibility for the production or sale of deficient, substandard or unfinished goods. The instructions follow the emphasis by Communist Party leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev on industrial efficiency. The high court also ordered judges not to release prisoners on parole unless it has been established beyond reasonable doubt that there is no possibility of their repeating the offense.
The commander of Soviet air defenses says his forces are “capable of destroying cruise missiles” and “all modern air attack systems,” according to Jane’s Defense Weekly. Without identifying the forum in which he spoke, the authoritative, London-based magazine quoted Chief Marshal of Aviation A. I. Koldunov as saying of his defenses: “They are equipped with weapon systems with a high level of resistance to jamming. They are capable of hitting all modern air attack systems at great distance, high or low altitude and at supersonic speed.”
Quietly, with no advance publicity, the Polish Government has erected a monument blaming “Hitlerite fascism” for the deaths of 4,321 Polish officers who many Poles believe were slain in the Katyn forest by Stalin’s security forces 45 years ago. Family groups who visited Warsaw’s cemetery for the war dead over Easter were surprised by the stone monument in memory of the reserve officers whose bodies were found in the forest west of Smolensk after they and 11,000 other Polish reservists had disappeared from Soviet internment camps. A number of visitors were dismayed by the inscription on the monument, which attributes the killings to the Germans. They recalled that in 1981, groups associated with Solidarity had erected a memorial to the Katyn victims on the same site.
The earlier monument dated the massacre as having occurred in April 1940. That was a time when the Polish reservists were still in Soviet custody and before the German forces invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Soviet Union contends that the Polish reservists were slain by the German forces after they had reached the Smolensk area in July 1941. In any case, the Solidarity monument was removed one night by the Polish Government shortly after it had been erected. There followed inconclusive negotiations on a Government suggestion to have a monument that would simply honor the Katyn victims without suggesting who killed them. Now, as stealthily as the old Solidarity monument vanished in 1981, the new one has appeared.
[Ed: Of course, the Soviets were absolutely guilty. The Russians even admitted it, after the fall of the Soviet Union.]
A pro-Solidarity priest was attacked in his home in Poland’s southern city of Krakow and knocked out with disabling gas by a masked man who burned a V-sign into his chest with cigarettes, a Roman Catholic leader and a source in the outlawed independent union said. Cardinal Franciszek Macharski said Father Tadeusz Zaleski, 29, “was stunned and then his face, hands and body were burned.” Zaleski received first-aid treatment from an ambulance crew, the cardinal said.
A judge charged a auto mechanic today with conspiracy to commit a massacre in connection with a car bomb that exploded last week in Pizzolungo, Sicily, and killed a mother and her twin sons. The bomb was intended for Judge Carlo Palermo, an Italian magistrate investigating the Mafia in Trapani and western Sicily. The judge escaped with minor wounds. Judge Palermo had also carried out an extensive investigation of international arms and drug trafficking. Gioacchino Calabro, the 38-year-old owner of an auto repair shop in Castellammare del Golfo, was arrested two days ago. He was charged with a long list of crimes, including terrorism and conspiring with others to commit a massacre. Investigators said that Mr. Calabro appeared to have business links with people suspected of killing Giangiacomo Ciaccio, a magistrate in Trapani, in January, 1983.
A heart implant in Sweden was reported by doctors at a clinic in Stockholm. They said that the first implant of a permanent artificial heart to be performed outside the United States was completed Sunday and that the unidentified patient was “conscious and feeling well.” A 52-year-old Swede, in a 10-hour operation at Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, became the first person outside the United States to receive an artificial heart. The patient, who was not named, is “off the respirator, awake and talking,” his doctors said. He received a metal and plastic Jarvik 7 artificial heart, named after its U.S. inventor, Robert Jarvik, who was present during the operation.
A 20-year-old East German border guard defected across the frontier near Fulda today, the West German border police said. He was in uniform but not armed.
Israel and Egypt are working on the substance of a “package deal” to settle differences blocking normalization of relations between the two countries, a senior official in Jerusalem said today. The official, who asked that his name not be used, said diplomatic contacts were being held through “different channels,” which he declined to identify. Ezer Weizman, whose title is Minister in the Prime Minister’s office, is expected to advance the talks next week when he goes to Cairo for meetings with President Hosni Mubarak and key members of his Cabinet.
Israeli troops backed by an armored column sealed off the port city of Tyre at dawn today and rounded up 200 people for questioning, Lebanese radio stations reported. To the north, Israeli jets bombed what the military said was a terrorist base in a Druse town near Beirut. It was the fifth air attack this year on what the Israelis identified as Palestinian guerrilla bases in Lebanon. The last was on the March 13 in eastern Lebanon against a base belonging to the Syrian-sponsored Saqa faction.
Waves of Iraqi planes and helicopters resumed attacks on Iranian targets. The planes reportedly struck a “large naval target,” Persian Gulf War shorthand for vessels near Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal. The new attacks came as U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar ended a shuttle mission between the combatants, saying he had made no progress. “We should be very careful not to raise expectations and not to give the impression that progress has been made,” Perez de Cuellar said before leaving Iraq.
U.S. aid for Cambodian rebels was hinted by the Reagan Administration. In a shift from a hands-off policy toward Indochina, officials said Washington would no longer rule out supplying United States military aid to the two non-Communist Cambodian guerrilla groups. State Department officials said the United States still believed primary aid for the insurgents should come from others. Since President Reagan took office in 1981, the Administration has repeatedly rejected appeals from Son Sann and Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the leaders of the two non-Communist guerrilla groups, for military aid.
A trumpeter touring China with the British rock group Wham! went berserk aboard an airliner, stabbed himself in the abdomen and ran into the cockpit before being subdued, sources close to the group said. The plane, on a flight to Canton, returned to Peking — where the Portuguese musician, Paul de Oliveira, 33, was placed under observation in a hospital, Portuguese Embassy officials said. Oliveira suffered superficial wounds. Wham! stars George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were not aboard the plane, which carried the advance crew and backup musicians for a Canton concert.
Japanese buying of foreign goods was urged by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in a rare televised appeal. By doing so, he said, the Japanese people would help solve trade frictions that could affect “the life and death of our country.” Meanwhile, the government announced measures aimed at lowering Japanese trade barriers and encouraging consumption of imported products. Mr. Nakasone, in a nationally televised speech, said his Government would take the lead in promoting imports even though it might cause some domestic industries to “suffer pain.” “If each Japanese buys $100 in foreign goods,” Mr. Nakasone said, “the increase in imports from that would amount to $12 billion, and foreign countries would be happy.” His unusual personal plea was part of a Japanese effort to ease trade tensions marked by a harsh and growing series of threats against Japan in the United States Congress.
A United States Embassy van loaded with sophisticated electronic equipment was seized by Mexican customs agents Monday, and American diplomats said today that it was all an innocent mistake. The van, bearing diplomatic plates, was impounded along with its contents after Mexican customs agents found that it had none of the necessary permits for the equipment it carried.
The Honduran Congress approved an amnesty for political prisoners today, apparently in an effort to free the Supreme Court President, Ramon Valladares Soto, who was charged with treason in a dispute with President Roberto Suazo Cordova. Congress appointed Mr. Valladares and eight other justices to the Supreme Court last month to replace judges who were said to have manipulated the electoral law in favor of Mr. Suazo’s faction of the ruling Liberal Party. Mr. Valladares was detained on March 29. He and his colleagues were charged last week with “treason against the fatherland” and “acting against the form of government.” The decree approved in Congress today would pardon all political prisoners detained since January 1. Judicial sources said it could affect two or three prisoners besides Mr. Valladares.
A landslide in a Peruvian Andean village killed at least 16 people. Fifty were missing and 60 houses were destroyed. Authorities said tons of mud and rock crashed through Colcabamba, about 250 miles southeast of Lima, as villagers slept. Acres of farmland were buried in the mud. Civil defense spokesmen said the slide was caused by torrential rain.
Brazil’s President-elect Tancredo Neves had a fever and rapid heartbeat tonight after doctors inserted a device in his throat to help him breathe more easily, a spokesman said. The spokesman, Antonio Britto, said Mr. Neves was being treated for “alterations” in his “cardiovascular functions,” including increases in his blood pressure, temperature and heartbeat. The 75-year-old President-elect has had six operations since he was hospitalized March 14 on the eve of his scheduled inauguration as Brazil’s first civilian President after 21 years of military rule. Vice President Jose Sarney is serving as interim President. Earlier today, Mr. Britto said the sixth operation, a tracheotomy, had been brief and was executed with “tranquillity and success.” The operation, in which doctors opened his throat to insert a breathing device into his windpipe, was carried out under a local anesthetic, he said.
The cholera epidemic that began two weeks ago at a camp for Ethiopian refugees in northwestern Somalia has taken more than 1,500 lives, according to official radio reports. Surrounding settlements have also been hit by the disease and the Somali Government has reported lesser outbreaks at four other refugee camps. The official Radio Mogadishu, quoting statements from the Somali Health Ministry, said in a broadcast monitored here today that 36 new cases of the disease and 20 deaths were reported at the Gannet refugee camp near Hargeisa in northwestern Somalia on Monday. The new deaths would raise the total to 1,521.
A senior police official, testifying in the killing of 19 people in a black township near here last month, said today that the use of heavy gauge shotgun cartridges and automatic rifles against rioters was justified because lighter ammunition had earlier proven ineffective in dispersing them. Maj. Daniel Blignaut, head of the riot control unit of the police force here, told a commission of inquiry into the killings that such conventional riot control devices as rubber bullets, tear gas and birdshot had proven useless during previous incidents of unrest because black crowds had become more “aggressive.” “People boast about the number of birdshot wounds they have,” Major Blignaut said, referring to the residents of black townships. “The more wounds a person has the more esteem he has in the community.”
Linda Chavez, 37, a hard-line conservative who has been staff director of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, was named as chief of the White House Office of Public Liaison. White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan said Chavez, as the highest-ranking woman in the White House, will be responsible for maintaining contact with minorities, women and other groups. She succeeds Faith Whittlesey, who is returning to her post as ambassador to Switzerland.
President Reagan goes horseback riding and does chores around the Ranch in California.
Conservative groups have called for the resignation of M. Peter McPherson, administrator of the Agency for International Development, following a stormy meeting with him last week. At the meeting, the groups criticized A.I.D. policies in Mozambique and El Salvador, as well as the agency’s $36 million contribution to a United Nations fund for population control. Paul M. Weyrich, director of the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, said in an interview today that nearly 30 conservative groups had joined his call for Mr. McPherson’s ouster.
Haitian immigrants have been dropped from the list of groups that are at high risk of contracting AIDS, but the federal Centers for Disease Control denied that the change was the result of political pressure. A spokesman said that statistically there is no justification for listing Haitians, who make up just 3% of AIDS victims in this country. Haitian immigrants have protested that their being listed as AIDS risks led to discrimination against them.
An Army laboratory in Hawaii has positively identified the remains of six American servicemen killed during the Vietnam War whose bodies were returned by the Vietnamese last month, the Pentagon announced. Four of the six were Air Force officers shot down over North Vietnam and subsequently listed as missing in action. The others were prisoners of war who were known to have died in captivity. They were identified as: Air Force Colonel Melvin J. Killian of Council Bluffs, Iowa; Air Force Major Cleveland S. Harris of Birmingham, Alabama; Air Force Major Chambliss M. Chesnutt of Little Rock, Arkansas; Air Force Captain Michael D. Chwan of Bayonne, New Jersey; Army Sergeant Gerasimo Arroyo-Baez of Maunabo, Puerto Rico, and Marine Sergeant Robert C. Sherman of Danville, Illinois.
From its inception in 1980, there were gibes that the United States rapid deployment force was neither rapid nor a credible force. But significant improvements are being made. The Marine Corps contingent earmarked for duty in Southwest Asia says it now has the ability to move 12,500 men to the Persian Gulf within a week, equipped to fight for 30 days without resupply. This force is scheduled to increase to 16,500 marines by late November. And, under a new Marine Corps doctrine of rapid gathering of other units, or “compositing,” it will be possible to assemble 50,000 or more marines in Southwest Asia in not much more than a week.
The Navy announced that it is phasing out the Naval Material Command and distributing its responsibilities among other commands in a move to streamline the acquisition of weapons and other materiel. A total of 450 positions, with payroll costs of $13.5 million a year, will be eliminated through attrition. The Navy said 600 to 700 other personnel in five remaining systems commands will be transferred to field positions to reduce a concentration of “high-ranked people” in Washington.
Two former Philadelphia city councilmen convicted in 1980 in the FBI’s Abscam investigation for accepting thousands of dollars in bribes were ordered to begin serving prison sentences on April 22. The judicial ruling ended 55 months of appeals for reduced sentences by former council President George X. Schwartz and former Councilman Harry P. Jannotti. Schwartz, 70, faces a sentence of a year and a day. Jannotti, who was majority leader under Schwartz, was sentenced to six months in prison. Both are Democrats.
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More than 170 protesters were arrested in carefully choreographed demonstrations as they tried to interfere with CIA recruiters on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. Protest organizers said they wanted to make a citizen’s arrest of the CIA recruiters but the Boulder County district attorney told them that there was insufficient evidence to support such arrests.
The Washington Post was rebuffed by a Federal appeals court panel. The judges, in a 2 to 1 decision, reinstated a jury’s verdict that the newspaper had libeled William P. Tavoulareas, the former president of the Mobil Oil Corporation, in a 1979 article. The article implied that Mr. Tavoulareas had misused his position and corporate assets to benefit the shipping business of his son Peter. Newspaper editors voiced dismay that the United States Court of Appeals had found The Washington Post guilty of malice in the suit brought by Mr. Tavoulareas.
John R. Block has money problems that reflect the farm crisis the Agriculture Secretary is trying to resolve. Secretary Block’s financial disclosure statements and interviews with associates and others suggest a worsening financial situation that includes serious troubles with a farm in Minnesota. But Mr. Block said in an interview he was sure the difficulties would “work out.”
A plot by members of an anti-tax group to firebomb the homes of four judges was uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, officials in Portland, Oregon said today. No arrests were made in the case after F.B.I. agents raided suspect’s homes Saturday morning, seizing dozens of weapons, explosives, silver bullion and currency, said Dorwin Schreuder, an F.B.I. spokesman. According to affidavits made public today, members of an organization identified as the Posse Comitatus Chapter for Multnomah County had planned to firebomb the homes the night before the raids, but the homes were kept under surveillance.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s remains were exhumed from their Wisconsin grave late last month and moved to the colony he established in Scottsdale, Arizona, prompting protests among family members and some of the architect’s former students and associates. Officials of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation said the exhumation and cremation were performed to fulfill the wishes of his widow, who died on March 1.
The judge presiding over Claus von Bülow’s retrial on charges of attempted murder said today that she might sequester jurors and alternates to prevent their being influenced by news reports about the case. The judge, Corinne P. Grande of the Providence County Superior Court, told a pool of 70 prospective jurors that she had not yet decided the question. The prosecution has asked that the jury be sequestered. The jury was not sequestered for Mr. von Bülow’s first trial in 1982, when he was convicted in a Newport court of trying to kill his wife, Martha, 53. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but the Rhode Island Supreme Court overturned the conviction last year.
A judge has issued a subpoena for Bob Woodward, the author and editor, to testify at a preliminary hearing for Cathy Evelyn Smith, accused of injecting the comedian John Belushi with a fatal drug overdose in 1982. Howard L. Weitzman, Miss Smith’s lawyer, said Monday that he also wanted to examine unpublished notes and records Mr. Woodward used to write his 1984 book, “Wired: The Short Life & Fast Times of John Belushi.” Robert R. Devich, supervising criminal judge of Los Angeles County Superior Court, issued the subpoena for Mr. Woodward and his records last week at Mr. Weitzman’s request. Miss Smith is scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing April 30 to face a murder charge.
The General Motors Corporation has agreed to recall up to 121,000 1984 X-cars and A-cars whose engines may leak gasoline and catch fire, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said today. But the Center for Auto Safety, an independent watchdog group, said that General Motors and the safety agency were “negligent” because their investigation and reporting of the safety defect was tardy. A General Motors spokesman, R. T. Kingman, said the cars to be recalled have 2.5 liter, four-cylinder, fuel-injected engines.
A supermarket chain closed its dairy today and recalled milk processed there after Illinois State officials raised the possibility that the milk might be responsible for a new outbreak of food poisoning. An outbreak of food poisoning last week sickened more than 2,000 people in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin. The outbreak was attributed to salmonella bacteria in milk sold by Jewel supermarkets under the Bluebrook brand name. The apparent new outbreak was being attributed to milk sold under the Hillfarm name, according to preliminary reports. The Bluebrook and Hillfarm brands are processed at Jewel’s Hillfarm Dairy in Melrose Park.
Major League Baseball:
In his first game as a member of the Mets, catcher Gary Carter hits a solo home run in the bottom of the 10th inning to give New York a 6–5 Opening Day win over the Cardinals at Shea Stadium.
A year and a day after being hit in the face by a Mike Torrez pitch, Astros shortstop Dickie Thon returns to the Astros lineup and goes 1-for–4 off Fernando Valenzuela in Houston’s 2–1 win over the Dodgers. Thon will hit just .207 before going back on the DL with recurring vision problems. Nolan Ryan leads the victory over Los Angeles on the Astrodome’s 20th anniversary, surviving a first-inning kiss from Morganna who also smooches Dickie Thon before the police arrest her.
At Milwaukee, Tom Seaver of the White Sox sets a Major League record by making the 15th of his 16 opening day starts. Seaver works 6 ⅔ innings in beating the Brewers, 4–2, and upping his overall record is 7–2 for opening day starts. The Brewers will beat Seaver in next year’s opener. The victory is his 298th.
Minnesota Twins 6, California Angels 2
Pittsburgh Pirates 1, Chicago Cubs 2
Los Angeles Dodgers 1, Houston Astros 2
Chicago White Sox 4, Milwaukee Brewers 2
St. Louis Cardinals 5, New York Mets 6
Atlanta Braves 6, Philadelphia Phillies 0
Oakland Athletics 3, Seattle Mariners 6
San Diego Padres 3, San Francisco Giants 4
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1253.86 (+0.88)
Born:
David Robertson, MLB pitcher (World Series Champions-Yankees, 2009; All-Star, 2011; New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, Tampa Bay Rays, Chicago Cubs, New York Mets, Miami Marlins, Texas Rangers), in Birmingham, Alabama.
Brian Elliott, Canadian NHL goaltender (NHL All-Star, 2012, 2015; Ottawa Senators, Colorado Avalanche, St. Louis Blues, Calgary Flames, Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning), in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada.
Yamashita Tomohisa, Japanese singer and actor, in Funabashi, Chiba, Japan.
History Diaries 