Three prominent Solidarity activists charged with inciting public unrest clashed repeatedly with the judge at their trial in Gdansk, Poland, and refused to answer his questions. The defendants, Adam Michnik, 38, Bogdan Lis, 33, and Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, 31, contended that Chief Judge Krzysztof Zieniuk was making it impossible for them to present their defense, according to observers in the courtroom.
An overhaul of Britain’s welfare system is considered likely. Saying the national welfare system had “lost its way,” the Conservative Government called for the most sweeping changes in Britain’s social benefits programs since they were designed more than 40 years ago. Charity organizations denounced the proposals as an attack on the poor. Almost every household in Britain would be affected by the proposed changes in the welfare system, a system the Government said will cost more than $50 billion this year. Under the proposal maternity payments and state death benefits would change, and an earnings-related national pension plan would be phased out in favor of a contributory plan. Benefits would change for children, the poor, the unemployed, widows, mothers and pensioners. Only the disabled would be excluded, pending another study.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher today announced a crackdown on soccer violence, including moves to ban alcohol at stadiums and extend police powers. She also promised to help the Belgian authorities catch the British fans who caused the riot that killed 38 people at the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus of Turin, Italy, in Brussels last Wednesday. Mrs. Thatcher said her Government intended to act quickly. To curb drunkenness, it plans to rush through Parliament legislation, already in effect in Scotland, that bars alcohol on buses going to games and in most areas of soccer stadiums. The Prime Minister said the law would be on the statute books by the start of the new soccer season in August.
Greek voters appear to have given Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou a license to continue on the course he set when he became the first leftist leader of his country. But whether Mr. Papandreou, whose Socialist Party won the election Sunday by a comfortable margin, can succeed on that course is less certain. In domestic affairs, where Mr. Papandreou’s policy of making his country a welfare state is fairly clear, it is hard to tell how Greece’s sluggish economy will raise the means to sustain it. And in foreign policy, Mr. Papandreou proved in his first term of office that he prefers to keep his nation and its allies guessing.
The Vatican and the Italian government signed a treaty that eliminates Roman Catholicism as Italy’s state religion and declares Rome is no longer a sacred city. The agreement, known as a concordat, revises a pact that was signed in 1929 by Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini, the late Fascist dictator. The old agreement declared that marriages could not be dissolved, but Italy has since legalized divorce and has also allowed abortion, which is vigorously opposed by the church. The treaty does not change the Vatican’s status as an independent state run by the Pope.
The mother of a Neopolitan crime figure who had turned state’s evidence was killed today in a bomb explosion near Naples. The police said the woman, Francesca Pandico, 65 years old, died when a bomb ripped through the hut in Liveri where she and her family had been living since the earthquake of 1980. Her son, Giovanni Pandico, 41, is a witness in a trial expected ultimately to involve more than 600 people purportedly associated with the crime group known as the New Organized Camorra. The police said the bomb had destroyed one side of the hut, killing Mrs. Pandico and wounding her daughter-in-law, Gisella Roberti Pandico, 25. Gisella’s husband, Nicola, 34, escaped injury. The bombing was seen by the authorities as retaliation against Giovanni Pandico’s role as a witness in the trial. Other witnesses in the case today demanded police protection.
The trial of five Turks and three Bulgarians in a purported plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II began its second week today with testimony about an impromptu meeting four years ago. In March 1981, four Turks gathered in the night club of the Hotel Sheraton in Zurich. Participants testified later that the group had made preparations to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Today, Omer Bagci, a defendant, acknowledged under questioning that he knew some of the participants. He identified their photographs in albums shown him by the Chief Judge, Severino Santiapichi. But he said he could not recall the date of a visit he made to Zurich about that time, and denied having taken part in the meeting, which was attended by Mehmet Ali Ağca, who later shot the Pope; Musa Serdar Celebi, the former leader of a right-wing Turkish group and a defendant at the trial here; and Oral Celik and Bekir Celenk, two Turks being tried in absentia.
West German officials said today that Rumania was planning to let about 1,000 of its citizens leave the country for the West. Fifty-seven Rumanians crossed over from East Berlin into West Berlin, between May 13 and 28, according to Ulrich Brimsar, a spokesman for the West Berlin Interior Ministry. Mr. Brimsar said the Rumanian authorities said 900 to 1,000 people were likely to be allowed to leave Rumania for the West in the coming weeks.
Israeli forces, backed by the militia known as the South Lebanon Army, raided two Shiite Moslem villages in south Lebanon today, demolishing five houses and arresting dozens of men, It was the third such sweep reported in the last several days in the so-called Israeli security zone. The zone, beginning just south of the mountain village of Jezzin, is an area that the Israelis hope will be controlled in its absence by the South Lebanon Army, which is commanded by a retired Lebanese Army general, Antoine Lahd. Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Sunday that Israel would pull the last of its troop units out of Lebanon on Thursday.
Senate action against Jordan is planned by nearly 70 Senators, according to aides. They said the Senators would introduce a nonbinding resolution today calling for a ban on the sale of advanced military equipment to Jordan until it opens direct negotiations with Israel on Middle East peace. The measure, which would not be binding on the Administration, would come only days after King Hussein left Washington after talks with President Reagan and other senior officials. Secretary of State George P. Shultz has said the talks advanced the prospects for Middle East negotiations. Reagan Administration officials were clearly upset by the decision by the Senators, representing both parties, to proceed with the resolution despite the progress claimed by the Administration.
Fierce battles broke out today in and around three Palestinian settlements in the Beirut area, shattering a two-day lull. The police said three people were killed and 25 wounded today in the fighting, now in its third week. The renewed violence prevented the Red Cross from removing more wounded from Burj al Brajneh, the largest of the three makeshift settlements. So far, relief workers have carried out 93 wounded people from the besieged settlement. After a cease-fire that generally held since Saturday, skirmishes Sunday night between armed Palestinians defending the refugee shantytowns and Shiite forces gave way to heavier and more sustained fighting today. Fighters of the Shiite militia Amal and soldiers of the Lebanese Army’s Sixth Brigade directed rockets and tank fire into Shatila and Burj al Brajneh, while Palestinian gunners in the surrounding hills fired artillery and rocket barrages at the Shiite fighters.
The Islamic Jihad terrorist group released a photograph of David P. Jacobsen, the kidnaped director of the American University Hospital of Beirut, who was abducted May 28. A note enclosed with the Polaroid photo made no mention of the Huntington Beach, California, man, but it denied that Islamic Jihad tried to assassinate the ruler of Kuwait on May 25.
Sri Lankan President Junius R. Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi promised to try to restore normalcy in north and east Sri Lanka, where Tamil guerrillas are fighting for a separate state. “Both sides agreed that immediate steps should be taken to defuse the situation…” said a statement released after talks between the leaders in New Delhi. Sri Lanka has charged that the guerrillas have training camps in south India and that New Delhi is not doing enough to stop their activities. India has denied involvement. Mr. Jayewardene repeated that he was willing to grant amnesty to Tamil insurgents in Sri Lanka if they agreed to stop fighting. The Tamil militants have several times rejected the offer.
At least 13 people were reported killed today when unidentified gunmen stopped a bus in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province, ordered the Sinhalese and Muslim passengers to get off, then opened fire on the rest. The report quoted from residents at Veppamkulam, 10 miles from Trincomalee.
The International Labor Organization said today that Vietnam had left the organization. Officials said Vietnam had objected to what it called “ill-founded” allegations, submitted to the organization by the World Confederation of Labor, that Vietnam had provided forced labor for a Soviet gas pipeline project. Vietnam also said it was unable to pay its annual dues of about $5 million. Vietnam, which joined the I.L.O. in 1980, had given written notice of its intention to withdraw “temporarily” two years ago, and automatically lost its membership by not altering that position, the organization said. It is the first nation to leave the 151-member organization since 1977, when the United States withdrew for three years after charging the “politicization” of the I.L.O.
A key witness for the prosecution in the trial of Philippines military chief Fabian C. Ver and 25 others said she was offered bribes to withdraw her testimony that she saw a man in uniform shoot opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. in August, 1983. Rebecca Quijano, known as the “crying lady” witness, came out of hiding to tell a news conference that she will give details of the bribe offers and of other moves to harass her when she testifies again Thursday.
President Ferdinand E. Marcos, who has ruled the Philippines for nearly 20 years, announced that he will seek a new six-year term in 1987. The opposition United Nationalist Democratic Organization, a coalition of moderate anti-Marcos parties, announced that it will pick its presidential nominee at a convention next week. In Washington, the State Department said the United States is not considering sending combat troops to the Philippines and that none have been requested. A department spokesman was responding to a weekend statement by Marcos that he might be compelled to ask for U.S. troops to help fight Communist rebels.
Liberals in Canada’s Quebec province won four special legislative elections as voters rejected Parti Quebecois candidates in the party’s former strongholds. The Liberal victories were a blow to the already weakened political fortunes of the Parti Quebecois and Premier Rene Levesque, who has been under pressure to resign. Liberal Robert Bourassa, a former premier defeated by the Parti Quebecois almost a decade ago, won in Bertrand, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. The election leaves the Parti Quebecois with a one-seat majority in the province’s assembly.
A major U.S. military apparatus has been established in Central America by the Reagan Administration. Military officials and diplomats say the sophisticated apparatus has been set up by a vigorous tempo of war games, the construction of staging areas, the creation of an elaborate intelligence network and a major effort to fortify allied armies.
Sandinista forces are getting bolder and appear to be striking more aggressively against rebel bases in border areas than they have done at any time since the Nicaraguan conflict began three years ago. “The Sandinistas are out to destroy the contras before the end of this year, regardless of the cost,” a South American ambassador said today. “If this policy produces a confrontation with their neighbors, or even if it provokes a military intervention by the United States, so be it.” Both Honduras and Costa Rica have said in recent days that Nicaraguan soldiers have crossed into their territory, apparently in pursuit of rebels.The Nicaraguan Government has denied incursions into Costa Rica, though it conceded that some artillery shells might have landed in Honduras.
An ex-Navy radioman was arrested in San Francisco and charged as the fourth member of a spy ring that the authorities said had smuggled military secrets to Moscow for up to 20 years. Documents released in connection with the arrest of the suspect, Jerry A. Whitworth, provide the most detailed picture so far of a spy ring that officials say operated on both coasts and at American naval installations throughout the world. Mr. Whitworth’s arrest was the fourth in what Navy officials say may be the most damaging instance of espionage in the Navy’s history. More arrests are expected. Acquaintances and government documents portrayed Mr. Whitworth as a man who tried desperately, and unsuccessfully, to better his life and end a career of espionage. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said that he wrote three anonymous letters to the bureau last year in which he offered to expose the spy ring in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Clearance checks must be improved, according to many Federal officials. They say that so many people are now asking for official clearance to handle secret and top-secret materials that it is impossible to investigate the applications adequately.
Attorney General Edwin Meese III said he will advise all executive agencies to comply with disputed provisions of the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984, even though he still considers them to be unconstitutional. Meese earlier had instructed federal agencies to ignore provisions that freeze the bidding process on government contracts for 90 days when unsuccessful bidders appeal their rejection to the comptroller general, who heads the General Accounting Office.
President Reagan attends a National Security Council meeting.
President Reagan meets with members of the press.
Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret M. Heckler, in a policy switch, announced that the Social Security Administration is backing off its controversial policy of refusing to honor some federal appeals court rulings. Heckler said that the agency in general will apply appeals court rulings to all similar cases of persons residing within that circuit court’s jurisdiction. For nearly 20 years, Social Security has taken the position that it had a right to “non-acquiesce” in certain decisions it disagreed with.
The U.S. agreed to follow precedents of courts requiring the payment of Social Security disability benefits. The decision marked a reversal of the Reagan Administration’s position in a dispute with Federal judges and thousands of disabled people.
Even though he listed a Maine address on his income tax return, Vice President George Bush is a bona fide Texan and was eligible to vote in the state last November, election officials decided in Houston. Harris County Tax Assessor Carl Smith, who is in charge of voter registration, allowed the vote, citing a provision of the Texas Constitution that says a voter may continue to claim state residency if he is serving in the federal government elsewhere.
A leading banker was sentenced to two concurrent 20-year prison terms for defrauding his banks of up to $30 million. The defendant is Jacob F. Butcher, a prominent banking and political figure in Tennessee. The sentence for eight counts of fraud and conspiracy was the heaviest that could be imposed under a plea agreement.
The two weakest of the five surviving Frustaci septuplets encountered additional lung problems today, and doctors downgraded their condition to critical and unstable. The lungs of the two babies, James Martin and Bonnie Marie, were growing weaker, said Doug Wood, a spokesman for Childrens Hospital of Orange County.
A state income tax in Alaska is expected to be reinstituted by mid-1986, according to officials. The taxes were halted in 1979 when oil wealth flooded Alaska’s treasury. Since the Prudhoe Bay oil strike in 1968, Alaska has built an expensive program of state services and has put thousands of people on the state payroll, all financed by billions of dollars in taxes and royalties from the North Slope wells. In these years of extraordinary wealth, Alaska has built schools, airstrips, docks and highways; lent millions of dollars to its residents at low interest, and even bought the Alaska Railroad from the Federal Government. But the state’s income has dropped along with world oil prices since 1982, when Alaska had about $4.1 billion to spend. The prediction is that in 1986 the state will have $2.9 billion available. With 30,000 people moving here in 1984, Alaska’s population is now put at 500,000.
Claus von Bülow will not testify at his Providence, Rhode Island, trial on charges of trying to kill his wealthy wife, Martha, with injections of insulin. Mr. von Bülow has said repeatedly that he wanted to testify and believed his failure to do so at his first trial, in Newport in 1982, contributed to his being convicted then. His lawyers, preparing to wind up their side Tuesday, said they did not need him because the eight medical experts they called had refuted the state contention that insulin caused Mrs. von Bülow to go into comas in December 1979 and December 1980. Three doctors testified today that the incidents were esentially independent of each other and were not the result of insulin injections by Mr. von Bülow or anyone else.
A man sought in the slayings of five persons detonated explosives in his van, killing himself and three others, after he opened fire on police with a machine gun, authorities said in Greensboro, North Carolina. The others killed in the explosion were the daughter and grandchildren of a couple slain in Winston-Salem. The man, identified as Frederick Klenner, stopped twice during the chase and fired at police. The second time he stopped, police said, Klenner detonated explosives inside the van.
The Florida Supreme Court granted a stay of execution today for a convicted killer scheduled to die Tuesday morning, and considered whether to do the same for a second man scheduled to die at the same time. Attorneys for the men, Oscar Mason, who won the stay, and Ian Lightbourn, argued that the men had ineffective lawyers at their trials. Their executions in the electric chair had been set for 7 AM Tuesday.
Union members have voted against a proposal to negotiate a new contract with the Hormel Company and a spokesman for the meatpacker said the vote raised doubts about continued operation at the plant in Austin, Minnesota. Hormel announced Friday that in August it would end its contract with Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. It represents 1,500 workers at the company’s meatpacking plant in Austin, where Hormel has its corporate headquarters. Workers at the plant, who voted Sunday, have been protesting a 23 percent pay cut that Hormel imposed in October. The company’s chairman has threatened to move the headquarters operation from this farming community if the local continues its protest campaign.
The General Dynamics Corp., saying it did not want to further damage relations with the Navy, has paid a $676,283 fine — 10 times the value of the gifts — to satisfy a finding that it gave improper presents to retired Admiral Hyman G. Rickover between 1961 and 1977, officials disclosed. The payment satisfies one of the demands Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. made May 21 when he announced the results of several Pentagon investigations into the giant contractor’s business practices.
Among the lush fields of the Imperial Valley in California, where summer temperatures top 100 degrees, is a camp where the Government is holding 372 people who sought to enter the country illegally. Eight days ago, 180 Central Americans and other detainees there began a hunger strike. They asserted that human rights abuses at the camp included inadequate food and medical attention, poor sanitation facilities, physical abuse and lack of access to lawyers. They also said they were forced to stand outside in the desert sun 14 hours a day while their air-conditioned barracks were empty and locked.
“Larry King Live” debuts on CNN, airing each weeknight through December, 2010
Major League Baseball:
The Brewers select University of North Carolina catcher B. J. Surhoff with the first pick in what will prove to be an extremely fruitful free-agent draft. Surhoff was the catcher for the U.S. Olympic Team last summer, and fellow Olympians Will Clark (Mississippi State), Bobby Witt (University of Oklahoma), and Barry Larkin (University of Michigan) are drafted 2nd, 3rd, and 4th by the Giants, Rangers, and Reds, respectively. The Cubs get a good one in the 24th round: Mark Grace while the White Sox take Randy Velarde on the 18th round. The Brewers take Phil Clark with the 18th pick of the first round, following his brother Isaiah who was a 1st round pick last year. Neither will play in the Major League, but brother Jerald, who goes to the Padres on the 12th round today, will make it. The Tigers pick a winner in the 22nd round with John Smoltz, then trade him in 1987.
Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd recovered from a shaky start and allowed one run over the final seven innings, and the Red Sox squeaked past the Indians, 6–5. Mike Easler singled in the go-ahead run in the fifth. Boyd (6–4) was touched for four runs in the first two innings but settled down to strike out nine. Don Schulze (3–5) was tagged for all six Boston runs, two of which were unearned.
The Yankee starting pitcher did not throw many fastballs last night. When he did, no one questioned him. Just a few hours after they demoted a rookie pitcher for throwing a fastball in the wrong situation, the Yankees beat the Oakland A’s last night, 5–2, at the Stadium, because Phil Niekro threw his famous knuckleball until the hitters were looking for nothing else. Then, when it mattered most, he threw a fastball. “I was in control of the knuckleball from the first inning on,” he said. “But there are times when even I have to try a fastball.” Bruce Bochte, for one, was surprised. He meekly flied out on the fastball to end an eighth-inning A’s rally.
The Orioles came abck from a 5–0 deficit to beat the Angels, 7–5. Lee Lacy sliced a two-run homer just inside the right-field foul pole, capping a four-run rally in the ninth. Lacy’s first homer of the season came off Donnie Moore (3–3), the fourth California pitcher, whose throwing error aided Baltimore’s comeback. Doug DeCinces, activated earlier in the day from the disabled list, hit a three-run homer during a four-run fourth that gave California the 5–0 lead.
The Rangers downed the White Sox, 7–3. Larry Parrish drilled a three-run homer in the eighth inning as Texas rallied for five runs. With one out and the score tied 2–2, Toby Harrah and Buddy Bell singled before Parrish hit his third home run in two nights, off Britt Burns (6–5).
The Mariners edged the Tigers, 9–8. Jim Presley stroked two-run singles in the sixth and seventh to help Seattle overcome a five-run deficit. Darrell Evans hit two homers for the Tigers. Jim Beattie staggered through five and one-third innings, giving up nine hits and walking four, to raise his record to 3–4. Mike Stanton got the last two outs for his first save.
Frank Williams threw wildly to home plate, allowing Randy St. Claire and U.L. Washington to score in the 15th inning, giving the Montreal Expos a 4–2 victory over the San Francisco Giants today. St. Claire, a pitcher batting for the first time in the major leagues, beat out a bunt to start the inning and moved to second when a throw by the third baseman Chris Brown got past first. One out later, Williams (0–2) walked Washington, and Vance Law hit a slow roller down the third-base line. Williams fielded it, but his throw home was wild. St. Claire (1–0) pitched four innings of two-hit relief to earn the victory. The Giants had runners on first and third in the ninth and 12th innings with one out, but failed to score.
The Mets went to great and uncharacteristic lengths tonight to lose a game to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 12 innings that they should have won in nine. They broke a 2–2 tie in the top of the ninth on a two-run home run by Danny Heep. But they blew the lead when the Dodgers came back with two runs in the bottom of the ninth off Jesse Orosco, the “stopper.” And they finally lost it, 5–4, in the 12th on a throwing error by Rafael Santana on a forceout grounder.
Ozzie Virgil hit a pair of homers to account for all the Philadelphia runs as the Phillies edged the Padres, 3–2. Virgil cracked his seventh homer in the second inning to give the Phillies a 1–0 lead off Dave Dravecky (4–3), who had his personal four-game winning streak snapped. Virgil made it 3–0 in the fourth when he belted a 2–1 pitch into the left-field seats to score Rick Schu, who had reached on Garry Templeton’s fielding error.
Andy Van Slyke, Tommy Herr and Jack Clark drove in two runs each as St. Louis routed Nolan Ryan and the Astros, 9–5. John Tudor (2–7), without a victory for a month, received 12 hits from St. Louis teammates. Ryan (5–3), who started the night with 3,950 career strikeouts, added four. He left after a run-scoring single by Herr, who raised his league leading average to .372, and a home run by Clark.
California Angels 5, Baltimore Orioles 7
Cleveland Indians 5, Boston Red Sox 6
Seattle Mariners 9, Detroit Tigers 8
New York Mets 4, Los Angeles Dodgers 5
Oakland Athletics 2, New York Yankees 5
Philadelphia Phillies 3, San Diego Padres 2
Montreal Expos 4, San Francisco Giants 2
Houston Astros 5, St. Louis Cardinals 9
Chicago White Sox 3, Texas Rangers 7
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1310.93 (-4.48)
Born:
Lucas Harrell, MLB pitcher (Chicago White Sox, Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, Toronto Blue Jays), in Springfield, Missouri.
History Diaries 