Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev is unlikely to come to the United Nations this fall, removing the occasion for an easily arranged meeting with President Reagan this year, informed sources quoted by the Washington Post said. A White House official said “signals” on Gorbachev’s intentions were received in Vienna last week when Secretary of State George P. Shultz met Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko. After that six-hour session, White House officials reportedly began to separate the question of a summit from that of a Gorbachev U.N. appearance.
Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige met in Moscow with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and presented a letter from President Reagan urging increased trade between the superpowers. Baldrige told Gorbachev that “there probably can be no fundamental change in the trade relationship without parallel improvements in other aspects of the relationship.” The Soviet chief said the “unsatisfactory condition of trade between the two countries” is the result of politically based U.S. trade discrimination against his country.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl said today that his Government faced no “agony of choice between Paris and Washington” on the issue of space weapons research. But he adopted somewhat aloof tones toward the American undertaking. In a speech in Stuttgart to Members of Parliament from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 16 member countries, Mr. Kohl said the Reagan Administration’s strategic defense initiative, popularly known as “Star Wars,” posed simultaneously “a chance and a risk” for the alliance.
The Soviet Union has denied a visa to an American linguist, causing seven other U.S. scholars to cancel a trip to a 10-day conference at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The visa application of Joshua Fishman, 59, professor of social sciences at Yeshiva University in New York, was refused without an explanation, and the other scholars then canceled their trip, though they had been granted visas.
A bomb killed four Ulster policemen in an attack for which the I.R.A. took responsibility. An Irish Republican Army bomb blew up a patrol car near Ulster’s border with the Irish Republic, killing four police officers and slightly wounding five civilians. The bomb, hidden in a truck parked on a country road near Newry. apparently was set off by remote control as the car escorted a Belfast-bound security van carrying cash. Police said a bus taking handicapped children on an outing drove past shortly before the explosion. The slain officers were from the Newry station, where nine policemen died in a mortar attack by the outlawed IRA in February.
The Communist authorities in Poland said today that the number of anti-Government priests had grown since the slaying of a pro-Solidarity priest, and they appealed to Roman Catholic Church leaders to prevent unrest. The Religious Affairs Minister, Adam Lopatka, said in an interview published by the Katowice Communist Party newspaper Trybuna Robotnicza that there was a “temporary worsening of moods among the clergy.” “In what we hope is a transitory development,” he said, “we have recently witnessed an increase in the number of antisocialist-minded clerics.” Church-state relations have been strained since three secret-police officers kidnapped and killed the Rev. Jerzy Popiełuszko, one of the country’s most popular Roman Catholic priests and a firm supporter of the outlawed Solidarity union.
The Swedish government and a striking civil service union reached agreement on a new wage package, ending a labor dispute that closed airports and cost the nation $77 million a day in foreign trade for 18 days. A compromise two-year contract proposed by mediators will give about 262,000 union members a 2% pay hike, about $19 a month. Customs officials, air-traffic controllers, teachers and bureaucrats were seeking a 3.1% raise.
Israel freed 1,150 Palestinians and other captives in exchange for the last three Israeli prisoners of war still in Palestinian hands. The complex exchange was coordinated by Red Cross officials. The 394 most prominent guerrillas were flown to Geneva from Israel and released at the airport. The three Israelis, who had been held since the Lebanon war by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a pro-Syrian group, were flown to Geneva from Damascus. After the exchange, the freed Israelis left for Israel and the guerrillas for Tripoli, Libya.
Israelis protested the exchange of prisoners in demonstrations that appeared to be growing into a controversy that could shake the Govermment. Critics demanded that the Government release Jews on trial or convicted of anti-Arab violence. Many Israelis objected strongly to what they saw as a violation of the tradition of not negotiating with terrorists. The Israeli radio said Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir was supporting a demand by West Bank settlers for the release of Jews convicted of terrorism and was prepared to bring down the Israeli Government over the issue.
Palestinians in Beirut fought fierce gunbattles with Shiite Moslem militiamen, and the Lebanese police said about 60 people were killed and at least 270 wounded. If the Palestinians are defeated in the fighting between the two Muslim groups — most of the Palestinians are Sunnis — the last force challenging Shiite authority in West Beirut will be eliminated. The clashes, fought with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and anti-aircraft guns, took place around two Palestinian refugee camps in West Beirut, Sabra and Shatila, and Burj al Brajneh, just south of the city. Sabra and Shatila are where hundreds of civilians were massacred by Israeli-backed Christian Phalangist militiamen in September 1982.
Iran’s Parliament has approved a bill intended to resolve a dispute over land ownership caused by the breakup of big estates after the 1979 Islamic revolution. The law, enacted Sunday, gives peasants and squatters rights over land they took over, but all landowners who escaped redistribution will be able to keep their estates. Some 600,000 peasants, farming a total of 1.5 million acres, will benefit from the law, officials said. They were allotted, or else took over, land belonging to 5,300 landlords, most of whom fled the country or had their estates seized. The peasants had no title to the land, and the insecurity of tenure encouraged migration to the cities. Under the law, squatters will be given one year to make the land productive or dispose of it before the government takes over.
India’s lower house of Parliament, in response to a wave of Sikh bombings, approved the toughest anti-terrorist legislation since the nation’s independence in 1947. For the next two years, it provides the death penalty for terrorist killings; prison terms for “disruptive activities,” including songs, paintings or books deemed to undermine India’s unity; special closed courts, and immunity from prosecution for officials carrying out the legislation. Parliament’s upper house, also controlled by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, is expected to pass the bill.
Five anti-terrorist commandos in Sri Lanka were killed and at least two were seriously wounded late Monday when a land mine exploded under their vehicle near the eastern port of Batticaloa, according to officials here. The officials, attached to the National Security Ministry, said a gun battle between guerrillas and surviving commandos followed the ambush.
Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka, which has evolved over the last decade from a mainstream political movement to a violent guerrilla campaign, poses more than an immediate security problem for the Government of President J. R. Jayewardene, Sri Lanka officials and Western diplomats here say. The Tamil problem has over the last few months begun to undermine economic development, particularly in the country’s north and east, where the Government had ambitious plans for agricultural and industrial projects. Transportation has been curtailed, making rice distribution more difficult, economists say. Potential investors ask worried questions.
At least 4 people in Pakistan were killed and about 200 were wounded today in bomb explosions and fights between rival political groups during the second phase of rural elections. Official sources confirmed two deaths in the southern districts of Gazaria and Bhola. Deaths were also reported in the districts of Jessore in the west and Noakhali in the east. Unofficial reports said at least 200 people were wounded in violence around the country. There were unofficial reports of fighting and bomb explosions in Chittagong, Rajshahi, Munshiganj and Faridpur. Election Commission sources said late today that voting had been postponed because of violence in at least 85 polling places. On Thursday, when the first phase of balloting took place, 6 people were reported killed and more than 150 injured.
Peking’s municipal Communist Party committee met in emergency session today in the wake of the country’s worst sports riot in years, a rampage that developed after Hong Kong eliminated the Chinese team from contention for the World Cup next year. After Hong Kong won the game by 2–1, enraged supporters of the Chinese national squad hurled bottles at the Hong Kong players before surging into the streets around the 80,000-seat Workers’ Stadium. The rioters smashed at least a dozen buses, overturned several cars and menaced foreigners, throwing rocks through the windows of foreigners’ cars and spitting on them. It was the worst outbreak of violence in the capital since supporters of Zhou Enlai clashed with the police in Tiananmen Square in 1976 after Mr. Zhou’s death.
A United States Senate resolution linking American aid to Philippine domestic policies was denounced today by a senior Cabinet member. “This is simple and pure interference or meddling in our domestic affairs by foreign Government officials,” said the Cabinet member, Leonardo B. Perez, the Political Affairs Adviser. The nonbinding Senate resolution, introduced by John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, was approved last week.
The Greenpeace environmental group today moved 70 people from Rongelap Atoll, which was contaminated by a nuclear test in 1954. The islanders were ferried 100 miles to Majetto Island, according to Dick Dillman of Greenpeace Radio in San Francisco. After the 1954 test, many Rongelap residents were taken to Kwajalein for decontamination treatment, but returned in 1957. They have now asked to be moved, saying that radiation threatened the health of children. But Roger Ray, the Energy Department’s project officer for the radiation program in the Marshall Islands, said average radiation levels were lower than in many areas of the United States. “I feel confident there is no major justification in disrupting the lives of the islanders,” Mr. Ray said.
President Reagan launches Radio Marti on Cuban Freedom Day. Cuba-U.S. relations worsened as a new American broadcasting service aimed at Cuba went on the air from Miami. Havana reacted by suspending a major immigration agreement with Washington.
Moscow will supply Nicaragua with 80 to 90 percent of its oil needs this year, President Daniel Ortega Saavedra announced on his return home from a 25-day trip to Moscow and 12 other European capitals. Mr. Ortega did not mention any other specific accords, saying that “the statistics are not necessary now.” But he is known to have reached aid agreements with Yugoslavia, Italy and Finland. In addition, he said all the countries of the Soviet bloc, each of which he visited, would provide raw materials, consumer goods and food to Nicaragua.
Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld, searching in Paraguay for Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz death camp doctor, said that she failed to get an agreement to show pictures of the fugitive war criminal on that country’s two television stations. She said that conditions set by the stations to show a three-minute videotape amounted to a refusal. The stations are privately owned but reflect the views of the government, which says that Mengele left Paraguay years ago.
An ex-Navy warrant officer is a spy, the FBI charged. Bureau agents arrested the retired Chief Warrant Officer, John A. Walker Jr., on a charge of espionage for trying to pass classified documents to unidentified agents of Moscow. The FBI said the suspect had obtained the documents from his son, a petty officer assigned to the carrier USS Nimitz. Walker was a United States Navy chief warrant officer and communications specialist ultimately convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1985 and sentenced to life in prison.
In late 1985, Walker made a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, which required him to provide full details of his espionage activities and testify against his co-conspirator, former senior chief petty officer Jerry Whitworth. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to a lesser sentence for Walker’s son, former Seaman Michael Walker, who was also involved in the spy ring. During his time as a Soviet spy, Walker helped the Soviets decipher more than one million encrypted naval messages, organizing a spy operation that The New York Times reported in 1987 “is sometimes described as the most damaging Soviet spy ring in history.”
After Walker’s arrest, Caspar Weinberger, President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Defense, concluded that the Soviet Union made significant gains in naval warfare attributable to Walker’s spying. Weinberger stated that the information Walker gave Moscow allowed the Soviets “access to weapons and sensor data and naval tactics, terrorist threats, and surface, submarine, and airborne training, readiness and tactics.”
In the June 2010 issue of Naval History Magazine, John Prados, a senior fellow with the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., pointed out that after Walker introduced himself to Soviet officials, North Korean forces seized USS Pueblo in order to make better use of Walker’s spying. Prados added that North Korea subsequently shared information gleaned from the spy ship with the Soviets, enabling them to build replicas and gain access to the U.S. naval communications system, which continued until the system was completely revamped in the late 1980s. It has emerged that North Korea acted alone and the incident actually harmed North Korea’s relations with most of the Eastern Bloc.
More competitive military bidding would be required under a provision approved by the Senate. The Senate tonight responded to mounting criticism of military spending practices by approving without dissent an amendment to make significant changes in the way the Pentagon does business. One important provision of the wide-ranging amendment would bar Government employees from dealing with contractors who approach them about jobs. Another change would require the military to use competitive bidding on more contracts. The proposals were adopted by a vote of 89 to 0 as an amendment to a bill that would authorize $232 billion in military programs.
Six Democratic members of the House of Representatives today offered a budget proposal that would eliminate the 1986 cost-of-living increase in Social Security benefits, raise corporate taxes and reduce future deficits by substantially more than the budget resolution approved by the Senate. The six include Representatives James R. Jones of Oklahoma, a former chairman of the House Budget Committee, and Richard A. Gephardt, who is chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, a policy-making arm of the Democratic majority in the House. They said their proposal would reduce the deficit in the fiscal year 1986 by $75 billion, as against the $56 billion in savings under the budget resolutions approved by the full Senate on May 10 and by the House Budget Committee last Thursday. President Reagan agreed to support the Senate version even though it would slash his military spending request and freeze Social Security benefits for one year.
Continuing its nationwide campaign to limit affirmative action to remedy job discrimination, the Justice Department sought to overturn hiring and promotion quotas for blacks, Latinos and women in the Chicago police and fire departments. The department filed five motions in three pending cases in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Two government motions were based upon the Reagan Administration’s disputed interpretation of a 1984 Supreme Court ruling in a Memphis, Tennessee, employment case. That ruling. Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds said, does not empower the courts to use discrimination to fight discrimination.
The Nation infringed the copyright on the memoirs of Gerald R. Ford by printing unauthorized quotations from the former President’s book several weeks before its 1979 publication date, the Supreme Court ruled. The 6-to-3 decision overturned a ruling by the Federal appeals court in New York holding that the magazine’s verbatim use of 300 words from Mr. Ford’s memoirs in a 2,250-word article was acceptable under Federal copyright laws as news reporting on a subject of public interest.
Attorney General Edwin Meese III, declaring that pornography has “radically changed” since a presidential commission proposed repealing most laws against it 15 years ago, named an 11-member panel to recommend ways to control the sexually explicit material. In particular, pornography has begun to place “more and more emphasis on extreme violence,” Meese told reporters at a Washington news conference. Californians on the 11-member commission include James C. Dobson, staff member of Childrens’ Hospital in Los Angeles; U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Garcia of Sacramento; and Deanne Tilton, president of the California Consortium of Child Abuse Councils.
President Reagan launches a summer jobs for teenagers program.
Negotiators for United Airlines and its 5,000 striking pilots returned to the bargaining table in Chicago, and a federal mediator said the atmosphere was positive as both sides tried to resolve the four-day walkout against the nation’s largest airline. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration reported numerous incidents of pilots from other airlines interfering with radio transmissions between non-striking United pilots and air traffic controllers. United is seeking a two-tier wage system, which would apply a lower wage scale to newly hired pilots.
About 2,000 followers of Scientology staged rallies in a downtown park and picketed a courthouse in Portland, Oregon, to protest a $39million jury verdict against the church. John Travolta and jazz musician Chick Corea each held press conferences as part of the ongoing demonstration, which began Saturday and is expected by organizers and police to build throughout the week as a series of rallies and concerts progresses. The jury found the church had defrauded a young woman, now 27, who had joined the organization and paid for Scientology courses with the promise they would improve her eyesight and communication skills. The Scientologists claim the verdict is an assault on religious freedom.
The costliest toxic waste cleanup to date is scheduled in the Bloomington, Indiana, area. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation has agreed to clean up six sites near Bloomington, where it had dumped polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCB’s. Lee M. Thomas, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the agreement was “the largest hazardous waste settlement in the history of the agency.” Mr. Thomas said that under the settlement, Westinghouse would build an incinerator to destroy the hazardous wastes, rather than transferring them to another landfill. “Treatment alternatives like this one are an important goal for future hazardous waste site cleanups,” he said.
A fireworks blast killed nine people in a rural area outside Youngstown, Ohio. A shed full of what the local authorities said were illegal fireworks exploded today, killing nine people and leaving two big craters. The bodies were scattered across a wide area of Beaver Township outside Youngstown, Sheriff Ed Nemeth of Mahoning County said. A search of the area determined that nine people were killed in the explosion, which left one crater 10 feet across and up to 5 feet deep, and another 8 feet across and 3 feet deep, Chief Joe Rinko of the township police said.
A mandatory seat belt bill supported by Governor Joseph E. Brennan was rejected today by a vote of 108 to 39 in Maine’s House of Representatives, and an aide to the Governor said it would be virtually impossible to revive it. “You can’t amend a dead bill,” said Richard S. Davies as the vote was being tallied after the debate. It had been postponed twice to give the Governor time to enlist more support.
The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant automatically shut down again today, only 24 hours after technicians restarted the Unit 1 reactor after an earlier shutdown. Ron Weinberg, a spokesman for the plant’s owner, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, said the shutdown was triggered by a malfunctioning transformer. At 5:20 AM today as the reactor reached 50 percent of its rated capacity, another transformer apparently malfunctioned and triggered another shutdown.
Rain helped sap the strength of stubborn wildfires that burned hundreds of homes and more than 150,000 acres of brush and trees across Florida, but a new blaze erupted near Fort Myers, forcing the temporary evacuation of a hospital and other buildings. Across most of the state, the fires were “much quieter now than they have been,” said state Forestry Division spokesman Larry Amison. Heavy rain was reported in hardest-hit Flagler County, north of Daytona Beach on the northeast coast, and the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the county.
Larry Holmes, on his quest for history, ran into the future tonight and almost stumbled. But in a fight that should restore some luster to the heavyweight division, the venerable 35-year-old champion overcame what sometimes look like a 25-year-old version of himself and scored a unanimous decision over Carl (The Truth) Williams. Holmes, on his way perhaps to bettering records for heavyweights held by such giants as Rocky Marciano and Joe Louis, was so bruised in the nationally televised 15-round fight at the Lawlor Events Center that he did not appear at the post-fight news conference. His left eye was nearly closed – he had suffered contusions around both eyes – his mouth was cut and he was exhausted.
Kevin Stock and Bob Loscaizo of Modesto (California League) both hit for the cycle in their team’s 23–4 win over Visalia.
Major League Baseball:
When the evening began, the Mets had the best of all possible worlds: First inning, bases loaded, nobody out, Gary Carter batting, three balls and no strikes. Not bad. Not only that, but the pitcher for the San Diego Padres was LaMarr Hoyt, who gave up eight hits and eight runs in the first inning last week, and who hadn’t won in a month. And pitching for the Mets was Dwight Gooden, who hadn’t lost in a month, ready to protect all the runs they seemed likely to cash in that big mess with nobody out. But the best of all possible worlds took a mean turn for the Mets last night in Shea Stadium. Hoyt fed an offspeed low pitch to Carter, who bounced it back to the mound into a double play by way of home plate. George Foster flied deep to left field. The Mets got nothing, the Padres promptly pounced on Gooden in the next inning for two runs and Hoyt went on to muzzle the Mets, 2–0, on four hits for his first National League shutout.
Davey Lopes and Steve Lake, reserves making starts, drove in two runs each today to lead the Chicago Cubs to a 6–1 victory that snapped the Cincinnati Reds’ five-game winning streak. Lopes had a sacrifice fly and two singles, and Lake singled home two runs in a three-run sixth. Scott Sanderson (3–1) was the winner and allowed five hits in pitching his first complete game of the season. Jay Tibbs (3–6) was the loser. Cubs’ Cy Young winner Rick Sutcliffe went on the 15-day disabled list with a hamstring injury.
Dan Schatzeder, making his first start of the season, pitched a seven-hitter and belted a two-run homer to lead the Expos to a 9–1 rout of the visiting Dodgers. Hubie Brooks drove in three runs with a double as the Expos tagged Bobby Castillo (1–1) with the loss. Schatzeder (1–0), who has made nine relief appearances, walked none and struck out four.
Rick Rhoden scattered four hits over six innings and delivered a key single in a two-run fifth, as the Pirates beat the Astros, 3–1. Rhoden (3–4) left the game with tightness in his pitching arm, and Al Holland finished with three scoreless innings to record his third save. Holland has allowed only one run in 21 innings since being traded by Philadelphia last month.
Steve Jeltz singled home the tie-breaking run in the seventh inning to help Steve Carlton tie Gaylord Perry for 10th place on the all-time victory list as the Phillies beat the Giants, 2–1, at Philadelphia. Carlton (1–3) worked seven innings, yielding five hits while walking one and striking out four for his 314th victory. Kent Tekulve hurled the final two innings to notch his first save. Reliever Vida Blue (2–1) took the loss.
St. Louis routed Atlanta, 14–0. Willie McGee homered and drove in five runs while Andy Van Slyke homered and drove in three as the Cardinals embarrassed the Braves at Atlanta. Joaquin Andujar (7–1) allowed the Braves six singles after a 1 hour 50 minute rain delay.
Jesse Barfield drove in three runs with a two-run homer and a sacrifice fly to back Jimmy Key’s four-hitter, as the Blue Jays downed the White Sox, 6–1. A Bat Day crowd of 44,715, the largest of the season and second largest in Blue Jay history, saw Key (3–2) strike out three and walk one en route to his first major-league complete game. Toronto jumped on Tom Seaver (4–2) for three unearned runs in the second.
The Twins beat the Red Sox, 5–2. Curt Wardle of Minnesota pitched out of a bases-loaded, none-out situtation in the ninth for his first major league save. Wardle entered after the Red Sox loaded the bases against the reliever Ron Davis. But Wardle retired a pinch-hitter, Reid Nichols, on a short fly and then struck out Wade Boggs and Dwight Evans. John Butcher (4–2) took a 5–0 lead into the eighth, but left when Rick Miller led off with a double and scored on a single by Boggs. Davis gave up a run-scoring double to Bill Buckner, but escaped further trouble in the inning.
Joe Beckwith uncorked a wild pitch with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth inning, allowing Curtis Wilkerson to score and give Texas an 8–7 victory over the Royals. The Rangers had trailed by 7–0.
The Angels defeated the Tigers, 7–2, but piled up players on the disabled list. Rod Carew went on the 15-day list with a stress fracture. Doug DeCinces and Gary Pettis are already hurt. And Reggie Jackson strained his hamstring. Ron Romanick (5–1) got the win tonight. The Angels lead the A.L. West by a game-and-a-half.
The Indians-Brewers game at Cleveland Stadium becomes the first one rained out this season, ending a record string of 458 Major League games played since Opening Day without a payoff on a rain check. Since 1900, no season had survived without at least one April shower.
Detroit Tigers 2, California Angels 7
Cincinnati Reds 1, Chicago Cubs 6
Boston Red Sox 2, Minnesota Twins 5
Los Angeles Dodgers 1, Montreal Expos 9
San Diego Padres 2, New York Mets 0
San Francisco Giants 1, Philadelphia Phillies 2
Houston Astros 1, Pittsburgh Pirates 3
Atlanta Braves 0, St. Louis Cardinals 14
Kansas City Royals 7, Texas Rangers 8
Chicago White Sox 1, Toronto Blue Jays 6
The stock market topped 1,300 on the Dow Jones industrial average because of lowered interest rates and the consequent prospects of a stronger economy. The indicator of New York Stock Exchange blue-chip issues rose 19.54 points to finish the day at a record close of 1,304.88, breaking the old mark of 1,299.36 that was set last March 1.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1304.88 (+19.54)
History Diaries 