The President acted on impulse in acceding to a request by Chancellor Helmut Kohl to visit a West German military cemetery next month. A review of what happened since their meeting on November 30 reveals an almost total lack of involvement by the State Department and the West German Embassy in the arrangements, which call for Mr. Reagan to lay a wreath in a cemetery containing the graves of SS soldiers. The episode, which threatens both Mr. Reagan’s carefully nurtured relations with American Jews and his reputation as a master of public relations, began five months ago when he received Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany for a meeting that included a discussion of Mr. Reagan’s planned trip to West Germany this May.
Protests against the planned visit by President Reagan to a German military cemetery spread as 53 members of the Senate sent Mr. Reagan a letter “strongly urging” him to cancel the visit.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev was shown on Soviet television visiting Moscow’s factory district. He stopped at a truck plant, a school and a hospital and visited the apartment of a young working couple. On his “man of the people” tour, the 54-year-old Gorbachev also gave a pep talk on the need for harder work and increased productivity.
Norway became the first North Atlantic Treaty Organization country to state publicly that it will not participate in the U.S. government’s “Star Wars” research program. An official statement said the Oslo government fears that development of new strategic defense systems could lead to an arms race in space and said this must be avoided. Norway, it said, believes that “this research must not be of an extent that would justify the idea that the United States is seeking to secure strategic superiority.”
Belgium expelled a former Libyan diplomat linked to a fatal shooting outside the Libyan Embassy in London last year. Police arrested Omar Ehmeida in Brussels after discovering that he was using a forged passport, then expelled him a day later. Ehmeida was spokesman for his embassy in London when a British policewoman was killed by shots from inside the building during a demonstration by Libyans opposed to the regime of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. Ehmeida came to Belgium in February and enrolled at a Brussels university.
Princess Michael of Kent, who is married to a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, spoke today of her “deep shame” at discovering that her father had been a member of the SS under Hitler. But she said she would soon prove that his affiliation had been honorary in nature and that he had been exonerated after World War II.
The United States and Israel have agreed on joint production of submarines, patrol boats and a new sea-to-sea missile, U.S. Navy Secretary John F. Lehman said in Jerusalem. After meeting with Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Lehman told reporters that the joint program will produce new diesel-powered submarines for the Israeli navy, but he did not specify where they will be built.
A Jerusalem court convicted an Israeli soldier of killing one Palestinian and wounding 10 others in an anti-tank rocket attack on a Jerusalem-to-Bethlehem bus last October and sentenced him to life imprisonment. David Ben-Shimol, 19, was also convicted of throwing a hand grenade into a Palestinian coffee house in Jerusalem’s Old City last September, wounding four people. He told the court the attacks were to avenge the death of a girlfriend killed by a terrorist bomb on a bus.
Lebanon’s unity Cabinet resigned after a night of savage fighting among Muslims that left Shiite militiamen and their allies in full control of West Beirut. The fighting in the predominantly Muslim sector of the capital, the worst such violence there in more than a year, resulted in the defeat of the Sunni militia known as the Mourabutoun. The victors were the Shiite Amal and Druse militias. The crushing of the Mourabitoun and the subsequent resignation of the Cabinet widened the division in Muslim ranks and further deepened Lebanon’s decade-old national crisis. Prime Minister Rashid Karami, himself a Sunni Muslim, described the new violence as a “horrific nightmare” and said the situation in the country had become “colossally grave.”
President Reagan meets with President of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria Chadli Benjedid. Mr. Reagan and the President of Algeria today discussed at length various proposals for bringing Palestinians into expanded Middle East peace talks with Israel, a high-ranking Administration official said. The Palestinian issue dominated the first meeting between Mr. Reagan and President Benjedid, the official said, with both agreeing there could be no progress in the Middle East without involvement of the Palestinians.
Police fired on rioters in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad for the third straight day, killing two people and raising the death toll to 11, the United News of India news agency reported. Army troops were dispatched to Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat state about 500 miles southwest of New Delhi. Protesters, mainly students from upper and middle castes, have taken to the streets to oppose a government plan to increase to 49% the quota for lower-caste members in government jobs and universities.
The authorities imposed a 24-hour curfew on Karachi, Pakistan, the riot-torn city of seven million people today. Army patrols moved through the streets, fighting occasional skirmishes with stone-throwing students. Thousands of soldiers were sent to the nation’s largest city to support more than 3,000 riot policemen and to enforce the curfew. Ten people were reported killed and 55 hurt in rioting that began Monday after one of two buses racing each other killed two woman students and injured three. Students from women’s and men’s colleges demonstrated, demanding that the driver responsible for the deaths be hanged. Authorities said later that both bus drivers from the Karachi Transporters Organization had been arrested.
The U.S. position in Asia is stronger now than at any time since the end of World War II, in the consensus of policy analysts. The economy of united Vietnam is stagnating and Hanoi is mired down in its own “Vietnam” in Cambodia. In the span of 10 years, policy analysts say, Vietnam and most Communist movements in Asia tumbled from victory or ascendancy to decline.
Taiwan today rejected a call by the United States House of Representatives for the extradition of two gang leaders convicted of killing a Chinese- American writer in California. Attorney General Li Kuan-hua told reporters the Government would not send Chen Chi-li, 41 years old, and Wu Tun, 35, to the United States for trial for the murder of the writer, Henry Liu, a critic of Taiwan, near San Francisco last October.
A former top Mexican police commander contends that he unwittingly allowed the main suspect in the kidnap-murder of a U.S. drug agent to slip out of his grasp early in the investigation because he failed to recognize him, court testimony disclosed. The ex-officer, Armando Pavon Reyes, told a federal magistrate that reputed narcotics trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero, suspected of a role in the killing of Enrique S. Camarena, passed unrecognized through the Guadalajara airport Feb. 9. Pavon Reyes has been charged with accepting a bribe to allow the escape of Caro Quintero, who was captured in Costa Rica last month and returned to Mexico.
President Reagan meets with Members of Congress and Administration officials to discuss the situation in Nicaragua. Possible compromises on Nicaragua to avoid a defeat on President Reagan’s $14 million aid package for the insurgents are being sought by Mr. Reagan, according to White House officials. “The President is not willing to compromise on policy and not willing to compromise on dollars,” a White House official said. “He’s prepared to talk compromise on timing.” But there was an immediate indication that this might not be sufficient. In a major speech tonight, Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, an influential Democrat who has long backed military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, proposed a package devoted to humanitarian aid.
The FBI questioned 100 Americans who had traveled to Nicaragua, according to House testimony by William H. Webster, the bureau’s director. He denied that the interviews were designed to intimidate critics of the Reagan Administration’s Central America policy.
President Luis Alberto Monge of Costa Rica said tonight that he would oppose renewed United States military aid to Nicaraguan rebels, although he expressed support for President Reagan’s recent terms for beginning peace talks with the Nicaraguan Government. Mr. Monge said at a news conference that he supported discussion between the Sandinista Government and the rebels as a way to solve the conflict.
Doctors treating President-elect Tancredo Neves said today that although he was very ill, there was still a chance he could recover. They said that despite seven operations and multiple complications, there were no signs that the 75-year-old President-elect’s vital organs had suffered irreversible damage. The assessment was in contrast with medical opinions of the past week, which appeared to prepare the nation for Mr. Neves’s imminent death. He became ill hours before he was due to take office on March 15. “We are not trying to diminish the seriousness of the situation,” Dr. Henrique Pinotti, head of Mr. Neves’s medical team. “But a perspective of recovery still exists.”
Most of those who died when police opened fire on a funeral procession near here a month ago were shot in the back or in the side, autopsy reports have revealed. The reports were presented as evidence to the commission of inquiry looking into the shooting incident that claimed 20 deaths and wounded dozens in the black township of Langa on March 21. The autopsies indicated that the majority of the victims were hit from as far as 20 yards away after they had turned to flee. The police had testified that they fired on the crowd, who threw stones and gasoline bombs, out of fear for their lives and that the funeral marchers had been within about five yards of the police vehicles before the order to fire was given.
Astronauts tried bravely but futilely to revive a disabled communications satellite. The astronauts of the space shuttle Discovery flew close in and snared a suspect power lever, everything they hoped to do, but the satellite remained powerless to proceed to a higher operational orbit. Mission officials expressed disappointment that their ingenious recovery operation, using two makeshift plastic and wire snares fixed to the tip of the shuttle’s mechanical arm, bore no results. But they praised the crew, saying they had done all they could. Officials of the Hughes Aircraft Company, owner of the $40 million Leasat 3 satellite, said it was now apparent that the lever was not the culprit in the malfunction that left Leasat powerless to proceed to its higher operational orbit. The cause was believed to be a more complex failure of systems, and quite mysterious.
Lower long-distance phone charges are sought by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. It said it wants to reduce the price by 5.6 percent on June 1, saving residents and businesses about $1.1 billion a year. The cut, if approved by the Federal Communications Commission as expected, would be across the board for domestic calls.
An immigration bill with key changes designed to increase its chances of passage will soon be reintroduced by Senator Alan K. Simpson, Republican of Wyoming.
The Supreme Court made it easier for people to seek damages for civil rights violations, ruling that states cannot impose a time limit on the filing of discrimination suits against public officials. The justices, in a 7-1 ruling in a New Mexico case, said filing deadlines for lawsuits filed under federal civil rights laws must be the same as personal injury actions. The ruling came in a case filed two years and nine months after an incident involving an allegedly unlawful arrest and beating in 1979.
A limit on the lawyers’ fees that successful civil rights plaintiffs may recover from the losing side was set by the Supreme Court. The Justices ruled, 8 to 0, that fees may generally not be received for time a lawyer spent in administrative proceedings before a dispute took the form of an actual lawsuit.
Cathy Crowell Webb was raped in 1977 despite her protestations to the contrary, in the view of Cook County [Illinois] prosecutors. In recent weeks, Mrs. Webb has repeatedly said she devised an elaborate story of a rape, ripped her clothing and inflicted several wounds with her fingernails and a broken bottle because she feared her parents’ reaction if she became pregnant.
Artificial heart recipient Jack C. Burcham has shown great improvement since a second operation to stop internal bleeding, but is still in danger of infection or kidney failure, Dr. William C. DeVries said. Burcham, 62, a retired railroad employee from Le Roy, Illinois, was in critical but stable condition at Humana Hospital Audubon in Louisville, Ky. DeVries said the hospital’s other artificial heart recipient, retired auto worker Murray P. Haydon, was continuing a slow recovery.
A chartered plane carrying 31 Mariel refugees to Cuba took off from Dobbins Air Force Base at Marietta, Georgia, on the 24th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion. It was the third flight since the Reagan Administration reached an accord with the Fidel Castro government last December allowing the United States to deport a maximum of 2,746 refugees it says are either criminals or mentally ill. Castro has said refugees convicted of crimes in the United States will be dealt with according to Cuban law upon return to Cuba.
James Briley, 28, entered the countdown to his scheduled execution tomorrow night in Richmond, Virginia, for the 1979 slayings of a pregnant Richmond woman and her 5-year-old son. Briley met with New York civil rights attorney Jerry Paul at the State Penitentiary near the electric chair where his brother Linwood died last October 12 for shooting a Richmond disc jockey. The Brileys led four other condemned killers from the supposedly escape-proof Mecklenburg Correctional Center last May 31 but were caught 19 days later. Briley has requested clemency from Governor Charles S. Robb.
Four National Guard helicopters and 225 officers focused on a quarry in the Ozark wilderness today in their pursuit of a white supremacist wanted in the slaying of a state trooper. The authorities said their “first solid lead” in a three-day manhunt for the fugitive, David C. Tate, was a report from a construction worker that soda and cookies were missing from his truck near the quarry, east of Branson, Missouri. Robert Davenport, in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Kansas City, said officers had discovered footprints in the area. The police said Mr. Tate, 22 years old, of Athol, Idaho, a member of the Order, a militant right-wing organization, on Monday killed a state trooper who stopped the Tate van. Trooper Jimmie L. Linegar, 31, was killed Monday as he radioed for a license check on the Tate van. Another trooper, Allen Hines, 36, was wounded. Mr. Tate was one of 24 members of a neo-Nazi group named Monday in a Federal indictment.
A special grand jury in Waco, Texas, questioned Henry Lee Lucas — who confessed to 600 murders nationwide then reduced the total to three — to try to determine just how many persons he did kill. Inconsistencies in Lucas’ stories indicate that “there are murderers… still on the loose,” state Attorney General Jim Mattox said. Lucas now contends that, during questioning, lawmen inadvertently provided information that enabled him to make plausible confessions to crimes he did not commit, Mattox said.
Two unions announced today that they were ending their 18-month strike against Continental Airlines, saying the walkout “was no longer effective.” “We have notified the company that we’re available immediately,” said Linda Downing, spokesman for the Union of Flight Attendants Local No. 1. The International Assocation of Machinists and Aerospace Workers also agreed to call off its strike, she said. The unions represent 2,100 mechanics and 2,600 flight attendants. About half the workers in each union had already returned to work, officials said. Continental filed for protection from its creditors under Federal bankruptcy laws on September 24, 1983. Pilots, mechanics and flight attendants walked out the next month, objecting to pay cuts and increases in working hours. The pilots are continuing to strike.
After a tally of all 234,000 ballots cast in the disputed Eighth Indiana District, the incumbent Democrat, Frank McCloskey, finished three votes ahead of Rick McIntyre, a Republican, in what was apparently the closest Congressional race this century. But the results will not be complete until the Federal team appointed to settle the election decides whether to count any or all of 24 ballots set aside by auditors. The ballots are known to be split 12-12. Observers had said earlier in the day that Mr. McCloskey was ahead by two votes, but discovered an apparent error in their totals. Republicans have complained from the start that the race would ultimately be left in the hands of the 2-to-1 Democratic majority on the team.
An Amtrak passenger train derailed in a remote canyon 20 miles from the Continental Divide, injuring 26 persons. Rail officials blamed an underground spring that eroded the roadbed about 5 miles southeast of Granby. The derailment sent seven cars of the eastbound California Zephyr hurtling off the tracks and down an embankment of the Fraser River. Crews completed a detour around the area and rail traffic will resume, said a spokesman for the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad. Five of the injured remained hospitalized.
Secretary of Agriculture John R. Block said today that an outbreak of Mediterranean fruit flies in Florida constituted an emergency warranting the use of Federal money and personnel. The Agriculture Department said three of the fruit flies were trapped north of Miami from February 25 to April 9, “indicating the likelihood of a reproducing population.” The flies can lay their eggs in more than 200 varieties of fruits and vegetables. When the young hatch, they feed on the pulp, spoiling it for human use. “The Mediterranean fruit fly is one of the most destructive insect pests known,” Mr. Block said in a statement.
Heart attacks among men have declined 25% since the mid-1950s, a study suggested, and the principal cause is believed to be healthier lifestyles. In addition, deaths from heart attacks apparently have declined by 30% since 1968. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was based on an analysis of Du Pont Co. employee records. Researchers assumed that widespread reduction in cholesterol and smoking, control of high blood pressure and increased exercise were responsible for the heart attack decline.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1272.31 (+2.76)
Major League Baseball:
Detroit’s hope of repeating last year’s 35–5 start hits a reality bump as they lose to Milwaukee, 2–0, on Danny Darwin’s 2-hitter. It is the Tigers first loss of the year.
Cincinnati Reds 6, Atlanta Braves 1
Philadelphia Phillies 4, Chicago Cubs 5
Baltimore Orioles 6, Cleveland Indians 3
Milwaukee Brewers 2, Detroit Tigers 0
Boston Red Sox 1, Kansas City Royals 6
Houston Astros 0, Los Angeles Dodgers 1
California Angels 4, Minnesota Twins 3
Seattle Mariners 4, Oakland Athletics 8
New York Mets 10, Pittsburgh Pirates 6
Montreal Expos 2, St. Louis Cardinals 1
Texas Rangers 1, Toronto Blue Jays 3
Born:
Rooney Mara, American actress (“Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, “Carol”), in Bedford, New York.
Luke Mitchell, Australian actor (“Home and Away”; “Blindspot”), in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, French tennis player (Australian Open, 2008 runner-up; Davis Cup, 2017; Hopman Cup, 2014), in Le Mans, France.
C.J. Wallace, NFL safety (Seattle Seahawks, San Diego Chargers), in Sacramento, California.
History Diaries 