Possible Soviet cheating on strategic arms agreements and what to do about it has generated a dispute between the Reagan Administration and its critics. President Reagan is set to announce on Monday whether Washington will continue to adhere broadly to the 1979 arms limitation treaty, based on his judgment that Moscow is violating it. If he decides either to renounce the treaty or to adhere to it with qualifications, opposition is expected in Congress and elsewhere from those who find questions of Soviet compliance with the treaties to be more ambiguous than the Reagan team does, and who, in any event, believe that the Administration is not dealing realistically with the problem.
In Portugal, Western European foreign ministers attending a North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting have told Secretary of State George P. Shultz that they would oppose any effort to abandon the treaty. The battle over how to manage this issue has been under way in Washington for more than a decade. On one side are those who feel different interpretations of treaty provisions are inevitable and can be worked out if administrations are serious about arms control. On the other are those who believe that Moscow’s moves are deliberate violations to test the seriousness of American resolve.
NATO foreign ministers stressed today that differences over existing arms treaties and space weapons should not be allowed to interfere with the Geneva arms talks, Western European officials here said. The ministers, on the first day of a two-day conference in this coastal resort, were said to have agreed that success in the Soviet-American talks in Geneva was the top priority of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. On the issue of President Reagan’s program to develop a space-based missile defense, the foreign ministers sought to agree on language for a communique that would bridge French and American differences. An American official said the French were willing to note only the existence of research on a space-based defense program in the communique, which is to be issued Friday.
Andrei D. Sakharov, the Soviet physicist and dissident, and his wife have “been removed involuntarily from their apartment” in Gorky, the Soviet city where they are in internal exile, according to the Sakharovs’ relatives in the United States. A petition, which the New York-based International League on Human Rights filed on behalf of Miss Bonner’s family, asks the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances to help get information about the Sakharovs. The physicist has been exiled in Gorky, a Volga River city that is off limits to foreigners, since 1980, apparently to stop him from issuing statements critical of Soviet policy.
The Turkish terrorist who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II testified today that members of the Turkish underworld, working with the Bulgarian authorities, helped finance terrorism to undermine Turkey’s civilian Government in the late 1970’s. The Turk, Mehmet Ali Ağca, who is serving a life term for the assassination attempt in 1981, also told a court here that he was trained in the art of terrorism, including the use of guns and bombs, in 1977 at a Syrian camp in Latakia that was run by Bulgarians and Czechoslovaks under the direction of the Syrian secret service. Lifting his voice, and speaking of the Syrian experience as if enunciating a formal pronouncement, he added: “I learned with certainty that the political and financial center of international terrorism was the Soviet Union.”
Jozef Cardinal Glemp, the Roman Catholic Archbishop, said today, a day before a dissident trial resumes, that human rights and “basic justice” were threatened in Poland. Cardinal Glemp told 70,000 people at a mass not to panic over measures the authorities had been applying. “The first step toward social improvement is justice, and this means respect for human rights,” he said at the service outside St. Anne’s Church. “The level of justice depends on the respect of these rights. Unfortunately, these rights and the basic justice are threatened and this is a cause of fear.” The Cardinal was apparently alluding to the trial of Bogdan Lis, Wladyslaw Frasyniuk and Adam Michnik on charges of organizing an illegal strike to protest the Government’s planned food price increase. Their trial is to resume Friday in Gdansk.
Israel began withdrawing the last of its combat soldiers from Lebanon today but left behind several hundred so-called military advisers in a security zone along its northern frontier, military sources here said. The sources said virtually all Israeli combat units were out of Lebanon as of today, the third anniversary of the Israeli invasion. But the advisers are to remain indefinitely to support the pro-Israeli militia known as the South Lebanon Army, which Israel hopes will control the security zone along the border. The military sources emphasized that although virtually all of the combat soldiers were now out, Israel could send an armored battalion back into southern Lebanon “within minutes.” The security zone is a strip between five and nine miles wide running along the Lebanese side of the international frontier.
Israeli leaders drafted a letter to Secretary of State George P. Shultz spelling out Israel’s opposition to talks between the United States and a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, Israel radio reported. The letter, written by Prime Minister Shimon Peres, expressed Israel’s opposition to Jordan’s call for an international conference on Mideast peace and U.S. arms sales to King Hussein’s government, the radio said. Peres drafted the reply in consultation with Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
Shiite Muslim militia warned Israel they would join forces with Palestinian guerrillas if Israel kept troops in southern Lebanon and continued to insist on retaining a security zone north of its border, both of which the Israelis have said they will do. Nabih Berri, the leader of the militia known as Amal, also warned that Shiites would carry out attacks across Israel’s northern border if Israel conducted raids into Lebanese territory. The Shiite leader issued the warning as the Israeli pullout of combat units continued on the third anniversary of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Israeli officials have said they would keep soldiers inside Lebanon despite what had been widely interpreted here as a pledge to complete the evacuation of occupied Lebanese territory by the first week of June.
Iran said its troops struck nine miles into Iraq on the central front and inflicted heavy casualties before withdrawing. Iran’s official news agency also said that Iraqi air raids on Tehran and other cities killed at least 33 people. Iraq reported two air attacks on Tehran and said its warplanes also struck at Iran’s main oil terminal at Kharg Island. Meanwhile, Mohammed Ali Hadi, a member of Iran’s parliamentary defense commission, warned that Iran will start using chemical weapons in the 56-month-old war unless Iraq stops using them. In the last two years, dozens of Iranian soldiers have been flown to Europe for treatment after suffering what appeared to be chemical burns during Iraqi attacks. On the southern war front, the Iranian press agency said, Iranian artillery continued to shell Iraqi towns. A spokesman for the Iraqi military said the petrochemical complex, which is being built with Japanese aid, was reduced to “a smoldering wreck.” But an official of one of the Japanese companies said the raid caused no damage.
President Reagan said today that Washington would not normalize relations with Hanoi until the Vietnamese accounted for all missing American servicemen and ended the occupation of Cambodia. Larry Speakes, a White House spokesman, said the conditions listed by Mr. Reagan were consistent with previous policy and represented the “threshhold” for the establishment of diplomatic relations. Mr. Reagan’s remarks on Vietnam had apparently been prompted by the fact that he was appearing here at a fund-raising event for Senator Jeremiah Denton, an Alabama Republican. Mr. Denton had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam for eight years. Mr. Reagan, who hailed the Senator as a “hero in the cause of freedom,” said Vietnam was seeking to improve relations with the United States 10 years after the withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam.
The star witness who said she saw a soldier shoot Benigno S. Aquino Jr. in 1983 testified in Manila that she was confined to a Hong Kong mental hospital in 1982 after two suicide attempts in jail. But she said that does not affect her Aquino story. “I may be the most wicked person in the world, but it does not change the fact I saw a soldier kill Senator Aquino,” Rebecca Quijano said under cross-examination in the murder trial of 25 military men and a civilian.
Rafael Caro Quintero, alleged by Mexican police to be one of that nation’s major drug traffickers, has been charged with the abduction and murder of two missing Americans, a U.S. Embassy spokesman reported. The Americans, John Walker of Minneapolis and Alberto Radelat of Fort Worth, were last seen Jan. 30 in Guadalajara, a major drug trafficking center. Caro Quintero was extradited to Mexico from Costa Rica earlier to face charges in the kidnap-murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique S. Camarena.
Haiti’s unicameral Congress amended the 1983 constitution to give President Jean Claude-Duvalier more power, including the right to name his own successor. The Congress, made up of 59 legislators handpicked by Duvalier in elections last year, amended 30 of the constitution’s 225 articles without any discussion exactly as recommended by the government. Duvalier, who is president-for-life, was also given the power to fire elected town mayors.
The Dutch 2nd Chamber accepts the “status” of Aruba.
The Senate approved nonmilitary aid totaling $38 million over two years for the Nicaraguan insurgents. The vote was 55 to 42. The vote attached the aid package to a bill outlining programs for the State Department. The Senate action was a significant victory for the Reagan Administration, which has been trying for more than a year to renew financing of the rebels. Last April the Senate approved $14 million for the rebels in the current fiscal year, but the House rejected all aid. A Role for the C.I.A.In response to Administration demands, the aid would be funneled through the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition, a law that bars any direct or indirect military support for the rebels would be lifted.
The Sandinista Government warned that if the United States ever invaded Nicaragua, American troops would be defeated by very mobile resistance forces. He also predicted that if an invasion took place, “friends of the Nicaraguan people” would begin a campaign of “generalized violence” against American interests throughout Central America and beyond. “This is not going to be like fighting on the plains of Europe in the Second World War,” the Defense Minister, Humberto Ortega Saavedra, said in an interview. “An American invading force will have to face resistance based on very special kinds of struggle.”
About 6,000 Social Security workers ended a monthlong strike today after the Government freed two jailed labor leaders. The two leaders of the Social Security Workers’ Union were arrested Sunday when the police stormed the Social Security hospital in an effort to end the strike. Four policemen were killed in the raid, apparently by other officers in the confusion. After the release of the union leaders — Jorge Alberto Albeno and Guillermo Rojas — the workers agreed to return to their jobs while their other demands were being discussed. The demands include an across-the-board pay raise of about $50 a month. About 5,000 employees from the Water Workers’ Union have also been on strike since May 13. The Government earlier declared both work stoppages illegal, citing a ban on public sector strikes.
Authorities in Brazil exhume a body later identified as the remains of Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious “Angel of Death” of the Nazi Holocaust near Sao Paolo, Brazil. The reported death of Josef Mengele stirred skepticism. The Brazilian authorities exhumed the remains of a man who was said to have died in 1979 and who they believe could be the long-sought Nazi death camp doctor. Investigators from the United States, West Germany and Israel left hurriedly for Brazil to check into the report, which prompted skepticism from officials and experts in several countries.
The president of the U.N. General Assembly, Paul Lusaka of Zambia, proposed turning the annual assembly sessions into a “summit of summits,” attended by heads of state or government. Lusaka, speaking at a special meeting of nine former assembly presidents as part of the United Nations’ 40th anniversary celebrations, said that “summit meetings would give (world leaders) an occasion to listen to one another; to know one another better, and to work together in many ways…”
Soyuz T-13 carries 2 cosmonauts to the Salyut 7 space station. A Soviet spaceship bearing two veteran cosmonauts and fitted with new flight controls was launched into orbit, bound for a rendezvous with the Salyut 7 space station in the first Soviet manned launch in nearly a year. The official news agency Tass said that Col. Vladimir Dzhanibekov, 43, the mission commander, and flight engineer Viktor Savinykh, 45, soared into space aboard the Soyuz T-13 capsule. Tass did not elaborate on what kinds of controls were installed nor did it mention when docking is to take place.
The Reagan Administration is taking a hard-hearted approach to disability reform and is still trying to circumvent appeals court rulings, lawmakers and advocates for the disabled told a House subcommittee. Top officials from New York and Massachusetts accused the Health and Human Services Department of proposing rules that flout a new law barring aid cutoffs in most cases unless a person’s medical condition has improved. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) said he wished the department showed “one-third as much compassion for the disabled as the Pentagon shows for ashtrays and toilet seats.”
Fewer Pentagon security clearances are now in prospect. Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger said his department would reduce the number of people who had access to secret and top secret information in an effort to foil spy rings like the one a retired Navy warrant officer is accused of operating for 18 years. Mr. Weinberger said in an interview that he had ordered a thorough review of security procedures in the Defense Department. “The numbers of people who have clearances is too large and we are going to cut that down,” he said. Meanwhile, a high-ranking official said that “at least another four or five arrests” were expected in the Walker case, in which four people are already being held.
President Reagan visits Northwest High School in Atlanta, Georgia.
President Reagan travels to Birmingham, Alabama for a fundraiser for Senator Denton.
The House of Representatives today cut the appropriation for water projects by $99 million, a cut that could affect 31 projects across the country. The 203-to-202 vote, on an amendment to a $13.5 billion supplemental budget for the current fiscal period, was one of the first in the House against a process that has made water projects one of the most popular items in Congress. A majority of Republicans, 108, and 95 Democrats voted for the reduction. But 133 Democrats, almost half the number of Democrats in the chamber. voted against the proposal.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it would give $45 million in grants and loans to 341 schools around the country to help them deal with asbestos hazards. The money will go to schools with the greatest financial need and the highest potential risks, according to Dr. John A. Moore, the agency’s assistant administrator for pesticides and toxic substances. The 341 schools to receive financial aid, many of them in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, were selected from 4,800 schools that had applied for help, the agency reported. An agency survey has found that 35 percent of the nation’s schools contain loose, crumbling asbestos that may constitute a threat to the health of children, teachers and other employees. The agency estimated that 15 million children and 1.4 million school workers are in buildings containing such crumbling asbestos.
A third Frustaci septuplet died of a severe lung disease that has afflicted the California infants since their birth May 21. Of the four survivors, one is described as very sick and three are reported improving. The baby, James Martin, died of complications of severe hyaline membrane disease at 11:04 AM at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, where the septuplets were born May 21, 12 weeks prematurely, to Patricia and Samuel Frustaci of Riverside, California. The official cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest, said a hospital spokesman, Doug Wood.
The lawyers for Claus von Bülow and for the State of Rhode Island made final appeals to the jurors who will decide whether Mr. von Bülow tried twice to kill his wife, Martha, with insulin injections. Mrs. von Bülow, one of the nation’s wealthiest women, is in what doctors say is an irreversible coma. Thomas P. Puccio, Mr. von Bülow’s attorney, asked the jurors to heed the doctors who said Mrs. von Bülow’s 1979 and 1980 comas were the result of her drinking and abusing drugs. Marc DeSisto, the prosecutor, held before the jurors a black bag that was found in Mr. von Bülow’s study closet filled with drugs, a syringe and a needle that the state says was used to inject the insulin. Look at the bag in the jury room, he said, and “every time you touch it, think of the defendant, think of Claus von Bülow, because it’s his bag.”
State Senator Tommy Brooks resigned from the Mississippi Legislature more than two decades after he first entered it and two days after his conviction in Jackson on a federal charge of attempted extortion. Governor Bill Allain will call a special election to fill the vacancy. Brooks, 60, was convicted of attempted extortion for trying to exchange his Senate influence for $52,000 in cash and $19,000 in stock from a group trying to legalize horse racing. He is to be sentenced July 18 and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in jail and a fine of $10,000.
Court documents disclosed that shortly before David Kennedy died he was devastated to find his grandmother ill and ran from her room crying, never to see her again. Nellie McGrail, a housekeeper at the Palm Beach, Florida, home of matriarch Rose Kennedy, said in a deposition that Kennedy, 28, visited his grandmother two days before he was found dead from a drug overdose at the Brazilian Court Hotel in West Palm Beach on April 25, 1984.
A Federal jury began deliberations today in the civil suit alleging that law-enforcement officials failed to protect demonstrators at a 1979 rally against the Ku Klux Klan in which five people died. Federal District Judge Robert R. Merhige Jr. instructed six jurors and four alternates at length about the use of informers and undercover agents by Greensboro, North Carolina., and Federal law-enforcement agencies. He also told the jurors they must decide whether officers exercised “reasonable diligence” to prevent physical injury and to prevent deprivation of the demonstrators’ civil rights at the “Death to the Klan” rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. Closing arguments in the $48 million suit ended Wednesday. . Survivors of the rally, which turned into a confrontation with Klansmen and American Nazis, charge that the racists conspired to violate the Communist demonstrators’ civil rights and that officers deliberately failed to protect them. Named in the suit are 20 Klansmen and Nazis, 20 Greensboro police and municipal officials, four Federal agents and the City of Greensboro.
U.S. dairy farmers got nearly $1 billion in payments for not producing milk during a 15-month federal program that ended two months ago, the Agriculture Department said. Although the legislation that established the program called for it to be paid entirely out of assessments on dairy farmers, about $80 million of the cost had to be absorbed by taxpayers, a department report said.
Wary of rusty operators and untested equipment, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission began round-the-clock monitoring of the restart of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The plant’s operator announced that it will begin an atomic chain reaction at Unit 1 on Tuesday, more than six years since it was last operated. The facility was shut down when the adjacent Unit 2 was crippled in the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear history on March 28, 1979.
Nuclear regulators are monitoring closely the Three Mile Island plant’s Unit 1 reactor as utility workers prepare for its operation for the first time since an accident crippled its twin six years ago. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is bringing in 30 inspectors from around the country to maintain a round-the-clock watch for the first three weeks of operation.
The Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug derived from marijuana for use in treating the severe nausea and vomiting frequently associated with cancer chemotherapy. The active ingredient of the drug is a full-strength, synthetic form of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the principal psychoactive substance in marijuana. The drug, Marinol, is manufactured by UNIMED Inc., of Somerville, N.J., which says it will be available for nationwide distribution in 60 days.
A storage facility believed to contain TNT exploded tonight at the Lexington-Bluegass Army Depot near Richmond, a spokesman for the depot said. No one was injured in the explosion, which occurred at 7:05 PM, said Kathy Whitaker, public affairs officer for the depot.
More than 10 inches of rain soaked Texas and Oklahoma, chasing residents from their homes and causing five auto fatalities in accidents on flooded roads. At the same time, a heat wave blamed for at least three deaths scorched the South for the sixth day. As churches offered air-conditioned refuge to the poor, the heat set or tied records at 15 places, including Live Oak, Florida, where the temperature reached 106 degrees. The mercury at Huntsville, Alabama, crested at 98, establishing a record for a sixth straight day. But forecasters promised that relief from the heat was just a few days away.
Two groups of scientists have reported the strongest evidence so far that there is a supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The observations, made at both infrared and radio wavelengths, strengthen the theory that very massive black holes exist in the cores of all galaxies. Already, astrophysicists have deduced that black holes may be at the cores of some distant galaxies.
58th National Spelling Bee: Balu Natarajan, a 13-year-old eighth grade student from Bowling Brook, Ill., won the 58th annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee Thursday, by correctly spelling the word “milieu.”
Experience overcame youth today in the French Open tennis championships as Martina Navratilova, seeded No. 1, and Chris Evert Lloyd, seeded No. 2, advanced to the singles finals over younger opponents. “That certainly wasn’t one of my finest matches,” the 28-year-old Miss Navratilova said after she struggled to defeat Claudia Kohde-Kilsch, a 21-year-old West German, 6-4, 6-4. In the other semifinal, Mrs. Lloyd defeated Gabriela Sabatini, 6-4, 6-1. “I didn’t serve well, I didn’t pass well,” Miss Navratilova said, “but I kept my cool and played well enough to win. That’s reassuring for the final.” She triumphed over the eighth-seeded player despite making many unforced errors, including five double faults.
Major League Baseball:
Away from Yankee Stadium and the ridicule that has hounded him there, the troubles of Ed Whitson continue. Once again the pitcher was clobbered and the Yankees lost to the Brewers here tonight, 5–1. “Name something I could do for him and I’ll do it,” said Butch Wynegar, the Yankee catcher. “We’re all struggling with him. We’re all feeling his pain.” Whitson has become something of a cause among his teammates. Since landing in New York with a big multimillion dollar contract he has lost six of seven decisions.
Jimmy Key holds the Tigers hitless for 8 innings before Tom Brookens leads off the 9th with a single, but gets no decision in Toronto’s eventual 2–0, 12-inning win. Key and Tigers starter Dan Petry each pitch 10 shutout innings. The winning rally began when when Lopez (0–4) hit George Bell leading off. One out later, Buck Martinez hit his fourth homer of the season, to left field. The reliever Jim Acker (2–0), who came on in the 12th, was the winner.
The Indians routed the Mariners, 9–1. Bert Blyleven tossed a five-hitter for his 199th career victory, and Brook Jacoby hit a two-run homer, capping a seven-run eighth inning. Blyleven (4–6) struck out nine, including five consecutive batters during the sixth and seventh innings, and walked three in pitching his sixth complete game of the season. In the Indians’ eighth, Jerry Willard groundout brought in the first run and Brett Butler had a two-run single, which finished Seattle starter Matt Young (4–7). Julio Franco greeted the reliever Roy Thomas with a two-run single and Jacoby followed with his eighth homer.
Ron Kittle hit a three-run homer to lead the White Sox over the Rangers, 4–3, in a rain-delayed game. The victory snapped an eight-game losing streak on the road for the White Sox, who beat the Indians in Cleveland on May 8. Kittle’s homer, his sixth of the year, broke open a tie game in the sixth inning. It made a winner of Floyd Bannister (4–4) who worked 5Y innings, walking two and striking out seven. He gave up all the Texas runs on six hits.
Leon Durham’s double with two out in the 12th inning drove in the winning run for Chicago, as the Cubs downed the Pirates, 3–2. Jody Davis singled to open the 12th off Al Holland (1–3). Chris Speier sacrificed Davis to second, and after Larry Bowa flied out, Durham doubled to left center. Warren Brusstar (1–1) was the winner as the Cubs moved one game behind the Mets in the National League East.
Pittsburgh Pirates 2, Chicago Cubs 3
Seattle Mariners 1, Cleveland Indians 9
New York Yankees 1, Milwaukee Brewers 5
Chicago White Sox 4, Texas Rangers 3
Detroit Tigers 0, Toronto Blue Jays 2
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1327.28 (+6.72)
Born:
Becky Sauerbrunn, Team USA women’s soccer center back (Gold medal, 2012; Bronze, 2020; team captain, 2021-2023), in St. Louis, Missouri.
Chris Henry, NFL running back (Tennessee Titans, Seattle Seahawks), in Oakland, California.
Trystan Magnuson, Canadian MLB pitcher (Oakland A’s), in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Drew McIntyre [Andrew Galloway], Scottish professional wrestler and WWE champion (2020), in Ayr, Scotland, United Kingdom.
History Diaries 