Russians’ hopes for better times have been raised by the performance of Mikhail S. Gorbachev in his first 100 days as the Soviet leader. After years of viewing their doddering chiefs with disdain and embarrassment, Russians were once again discussing their leader’s doings and appearances. Even some cynical intellectuals have cocked a hopeful eye to the relatively young leader. Gorbachev may have had little or nothing to do with the recent release of the film “Agoniya.” Yet it was symptomatic that people were quick to credit the new leader with being responsible for bringing out the film, which is about the last days of the Romanov dynasty. It had lain on the censor’s shelf for more than a decade – because, in the view of many here, the Soviet authorities were not willing to have Czar Nicholas II portrayed as a bewildered human being overwhelmed by history. In the past, Muscovites would have said that the film had been released despite the leader. Now they seemed anxious to treat the event as added evidence that a new day had dawned in the Kremlin.
Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski has urged members of the ruling Communist Party to emulate the Soviet example and be bolder in criticizing party and government officials, newspapers reported. At a Central Committee meeting last week, Jaruzelski reportedly said: “Soviet comrades criticize openly, publicly and by name, both the heads of some administrative and economic cells, the central level included, and individual members of the party authorities. In our country, it is all too gentle in this respect, all too smooth, with no mentioning of names.”
A major organized crime figure who turned state’s evidence in Italy has said that Mehmet Ali Ağca, the convicted assailant of Pope John Paul II, was coached in prison by the Italian secret services to say that the shooting of the Pope in 1981 was commissioned by the Bulgarian security service, and thus, the Soviet Union. Giovanni Pandico, a confessed racketeer now giving evidence in a major trial against the Camorra, the center of organized crime in Naples, told a weekly news magazine that Pietro Musumeci, the former deputy head of Italy’s military intelligence service, used organized crime channels to assure Mr. Ağca his liberty in exchange for testimony implicating Soviet bloc Governments in the plot. This explanation of why Mr. Ağca is accusing Bulgaria and the Soviet Union of commissioning the murder of the Pope has been suggested before, mainly by Soviet and Bulgarian officials and leftist newspapers in Italy. But Mr. Pandico’s claims are expected to have a major impact on the trial here against three Bulgarians and four Turks accused of conspiring to shoot the Pope, because it is the first time a figure with such intimate familiarity with Italian organized crime has described in detail the purported link between Mr. Ağca and the underworld.
The Turkish Parliament passed a controversial bill giving police wide new powers, the Anatolian News Agency said. It said the bill sets out new areas of responsibility for the police, including moral behavior, control of entertainment, clubs and organizations and public health. Western diplomats in Ankara said their governments were concerned that the bill would worsen Turkey’s human rights record, already tarnished by charges of torture and what is seen as a failure to return fully to democracy since the 1980 military coup.
West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl insisted to a Silesian exile organization today that West Germany had no claims on the territory of Poland and would not raise them in the future. Making an appearance in Hanover before the Silesian Compatriot Association, a group representing Germans who fled their homeland at the end of World War II, Mr. Kohl was repeatedly interrupted by hecklers who whistled and shouted and flashed Hitler-style salutes. Mr. Kohl’s forthright endorsement of a 1970 treaty with Poland, which implicitly recognized its existing frontiers, was unwelcome to many of the 10,000 Silesians and their descendants who heard the Chancellor. He was roundly jeered when he made friendly allusions to Poland and praised Silesians who had plotted against Hitler.
The T.W.A. jet hijackers made it fly for a third time to Beirut, where negotiations began on the release of more than 30 hostages aboard and up to a dozen more who had been taken to an unknown location outside the plane. Nahib Berri, the leader of Beirut’s main Shiite Muslim militia, Amal, said he was trying to negotiate a Red Cross airlift of 700 Shiite Muslim prisoners from northern Israel to Damascus, Syria. The release would meet the hijackers’ principal demand. The hijackers issued what they said was a letter signed by 32 of their hostages appealing to President Reagan to avoid a military rescue and to convince Israel to release the Shiite Muslims.
The jet’s purser collected passports on orders from the hijackers and was instructed to give them passports bearing Jewish-sounding names, Uli Derickson, the purser said. Some of the passengers were then taken off the plane, she said.
President Reagan attends a National Security Council Meeting to discuss the TWA flight 847 hijacking.
The President warned the hijackers “for their own safety” to free the American hostages as well as the passengers removed from the plane Friday night. Mr. Reagan affirmed the United States policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists.
Israel is willing to consider freeing about 700 Lebanese Shiites it is holding in exchange for the release of the Americans aboard the hijacked plane if the United States requests it, an Israeli official said. The official emphasized that such a request had not yet come from the United States.
Americans freed by the hijackers in Algiers prayed for peace in the Middle East. They gathered in the lobby of a hotel in Algiers, where they had been taken before being put aboard a special flight to Paris. They had been on vacations, honeymoons and a religious pilgrimage.
Fighting between rival militias raged on two fronts in Beirut. The 28th day of a bloody siege at two Palestinian refugee camps on the southern outskirts of the Lebanese capital coincided with a two-hour clash between Christian and Muslim forces in the heart of the city, the Christian Voice of Lebanon radio reported. Shia Muslim forces pounded the refugee camps with mortar and tank fire, but the Palestinians continued to hold out with the help of rocket fire from Palestinians entrenched in mountains overlooking Beirut.
About 140 people were killed when a rebel-bomb wrecked a large building in Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan, guerrilla sources reported in Islamabad, Pakistan. They said rescuers dug bodies out of the debris for up to four days after the blast June 5 at the Haji Saleem Shah Building and that most of those killed were members of the ruling Communist Party. The guerrilla sources also said rebels launched a rocket attack on Gardez airport in eastern Afghanistan last week. No independent confirmation of the reports was available.
At least 100 Tamil separatist guerrillas were killed or wounded when security forces raided a rebel hideout in northwestern Sri Lanka, state radio reported. Earlier, officials said that only 18 guerrillas were killed and 20 wounded over the weekend at the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam camp at Mannar. Security forces could not confirm the higher figure. They said guerrillas also blew up a rail bridge at Omanthai, disrupting the 250-mile route from Colombo to Jaffna. The rebels want an autonomous state in the north and east.
The Philippines’ armed forces chief, Gen. Fabian C. Ver, on leave during his trial on charges of complicity in the murder of opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., said he was pleased by last week’s court ruling throwing out testimony that he tried to cover up the attempt to kill Aquino in August, 1983. He said President Ferdinand E. Marcos greeted him a day after the ruling and said, “Shouldn’t we be celebrating?”
The suspected leader of a group fighting for the independence of French overseas territories escaped from jail in Guadeloupe today, the public prosecutor said. The escapee, Luc Reinette, was sentenced earlier this year to 23 years in jail for illegal possession of arms, an attack against a radio station and a bombing in the capital, Basse Terre, in which more than 20 people were hurt. Prosecutors say he is the leader of the Revolutionary Caribbean Alliance.
Chile’s military government announced the lifting of the state of siege ordered Nov. 6 to crack down on mounting political protests and terrorism. It said there has been a marked drop in terrorist activity, allowing an end to mass detentions and censorship. President Augusto Pinochet will still hold exceptional powers under a continuing state of emergency, officials said.
United Nations officials in Ethiopia have advised Western nations not to send new shipments of food to this country until more of the supplies now in ports and warehouses have been moved to relief centers. At the same time, the officials said, they have reached an agreement with the Ethiopian leader, Lieut. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, aimed at sharply increasing the flow of grain to millions of starving peasants. Kurt Jansson, the United Nations Assistant Secretary General for emergency operations in Ethiopia, and Maurice F. Strong, executive coordinator of the United Nations Office for Emergency Operations in Africa, said after a meeting with Colonel Mengistu on Saturday that there are enough food supplies in the country to meet the immediate needs of most of the nearly eight million people estimated to be “at risk” as a result of drought and famine.
Observance of the Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976 was broken up by South African police and army units. Tear gas and rubber bullets were used to disperse thousands of blacks, many of whom had attended an anniversary service in Regina Mundi Cathedral. Despite calls by some clergymen for prayers for the overthrow of the white minority Government to mark the day, the mood seemed almost an anticlimax compared to the passion voiced in advance of one of the most highly charged days of the year for the black majority. The day in 1976 was the start of an uprising that spread from Soweto and claimed more than 500 lives before the unrest eased in 1977. Today, about 4,000 black people crammed into Regina Mundi Cathedral in Soweto to hear a blend of hymns and political proselytization while police and army units waited outside. Churches are one of the few places where blacks may lawfully congregate in South Africa.
The future of land-based missiles is uncertain in the United States nuclear arsenal following a political bargain that limits the deployment of MX missiles and looming problems with the planned Midgetman missile, according to Pentagon officials and members of Congress. The officials and some lawmakers say they are more worried than ever that the United States in the next decade may become dangerously dependent on missile-carrying submarines and bombers to retaliate in a nuclear attack.
President Reagan returns to the White House from the weekend at Camp David.
White House Communications Director Patrick J. Buchanan, in a letter to the New York Times, said Governor Mario M. Cuomo exceeded his “normal level” of “nastiness” and “falsifications” in remarks June 7 in response to a Buchanan defense of President Reagan’s tax reform plan. Buchanan reportedly had said earlier that high-tax states such as New York had taken a “neo-socialist” approach to redistributing wealth and that a goal of the tax plan is to tilt the system in favor of “traditional families in which the husband works outside the home and the wife takes care of the children.” Cuomo had called those remarks “ugly rhetoric” unworthy of the White House.
A voting fraud trial in Selma, Alabama, in which an associate of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the defendants, comes at a critical moment as blacks are looking to extend political gains they have made in recent years. Albert Turner, the former state director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who is one of three defendants, says the charges were brought about by forces who want to impede black political power in the area.
Members of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, meeting in Anchorage, who have been focusing on President Reagan’s tax reform plan, shifted their attention to the support of nuclear disarmament, freer international trade and federal highway maintenance. The conference’s resolutions committee took up about 50 resolutions, reviewing them before the entire gathering of about 165 mayors votes on them Wednesday. The panel also passed a resolution urging Congress not to halt deductions for state and local taxes from federal bills.
A Japanese-American seeks redress for a prison sentence given for defying World War II internment. In a trial that begins today in Seattle, Gordon Hirabayashi will attempt to overturn his conviction for defying an internment order, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1943. The High Court said at the time that government action was justified on the ground of military necessity in the months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But Federal District Judge Donald S. Voorhees has agreed to hearings on whether Mr. Hirabayashi, who spent nearly two years in prison, received a fair trial. Evidence will include previously unknown documents obtained in 1983 under the Freedom of Information Act that Mr. Hirabayashi’s lawyers say indicate the government withheld vital information.
A French pilot and a Saudi prince are joining five Americans to make up the crew of the space shuttle Discovery’s week-long mission scheduled to begin tomorrow. Space agency officials say the international crew and its tasks highlight how the shuttle program is maturing to serve the world, even though it is usually considered strictly an American achievement. The launching is scheduled for 7:33 AM Eastern daylight time, subject to the weather and a smooth countdown in the final hours. Thundershowers moved through the area this evening but the weather was expected to clear by launch time, an official said.
Two congressmen said they plan to ask the House to bar payments, at least temporarily, to Hughes Helicopter because it could not back up millions of dollars in bills sent to the Pentagon. House Armed Services investigations subcommittee Chairman Bill Nichols (D-Alabama) and procurement subcommittee Chairman Samuel S. Stratton (D-New York) said that the firm’s billing records were a mess when they were examined for overhead for 1979-1983, and that the firm could not provide data to back up 40% of its billings. Stratton said he will offer an amendment to the defense authorization bill Tuesday to prohibit payment until Hughes improves its accounting system.
The strike by New York hotel workers could spread to about 40 more hotels this week if the union believes such a maneuver would force an end to the walkout, already in its third week, officials said. Negotiations aimed at ending the strike against 54 hotels by 16,000 workers ranging from bellhops to bartenders were scheduled to resume today. The talks last adjourned when a snag developed over the issue of higher tips for banquet waiters. Union spokesman Drew Biondo said officials would decide after today’s session whether the walkout would be expanded to include about 40 hotels not yet affected by the strike.
The death of an honor student accused of assaulting a police officer has been ruled a homicide, New York Chief Medical Examiner Elliot Gross said. Edmund Perry, 17, was shot Wednesday by Officer Lee Van Houten, who said he fired in self-defense after an attempted mugging by the youth and a companion. Perry’s family called the killing unwarranted, but police said witnesses supported Van Houten’s account. Gross’ report did not speculate whether the shooting was justified. Perry, who graduated from high school with honors, was to attend Stanford University.
Pasteurization was performed correctly at a plant that made a Mexican-style cheese linked to 29 deaths or stillbirths from a bacterial infection, a state health official said today. Inspectors from the state and Federal Governments, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the plant itself spent the weekend at Jalisco Mexican Products in Artesia, a Los Angeles suburb, according to Hans Van Nes, deputy director of the state Department of Food and Agriculture. “From all records and everything they’ve seen, the pasteurization has been excellent,” he said today in an interview from Sacramento. “We are down to looking at how it was handled and packaged. We will stay there until we have turned over every rock.” Health officials in Los Angeles and Orange Counties ascribe 29 deaths and stillbirths and at least 58 illnesses since mid-March to a bacteria called Listeria monocytogenes, which has been found in two Jalisco cheeses. Officials said Saturday the death toll was 28, but Dorothy McVann, associate deputy for public health programs for Los Angeles County, said it was 29.
The police arrested 21 juveniles in a weekend crackdown on curfew violators in the busiest nightclub district of Los Angeles. Merchants in the area, Westwood, near the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles, have complained that the wandering youths hurt patronage at theaters, shops and nearly 100 clubs and restaurants. The police officers picked up 12 juveniles Friday night and nine Saturday night on suspicion of being out after 10 PM without a clear destination and proper adult supervision.
A tornado raked a South Carolina trailer park, while showers and thunderstorms pushed along the Atlantic Coast and the threat of more rain figured into plans for the space shuttle launching in Florida. Thunderstorms also developed from southeast Nebraska through eastern sections of Kansas and Oklahoma. At least three people were injured when a twister hit Hilton Head, South Carolina. The tornado destroyed one trailer and damaged three.
Two pediatric and genetic researchers say that many pregnant women who consume aspartame, the popular sugar substitute sold as NutraSweet in soft drinks and 70 other products, may have babies with permanent brain damage. In a contention rejected by officials of G.D. Searle, NutraSweet’s manufacturer, one of the scientists, Dr. Louis Elsas of Emory University in Atlanta, also said he believes that a key aspartame component can cause similar damage to infants if they ingest it within six months after birth. Elsas said the damage may not show up for years.
Major League Baseball:
Nick Esasky’s solo homer in the 10th inning off Bruce Sutter gave Cincinnati a 6–5 victory in Atlanta. It was the first home run since May 4 and fifth of the season for Esasky. Sutter (3–2), the Braves’ ace reliever, also gave up two runs in the ninth that sent the game into extra innings. Ted Power (1–2), the Reds’ fourth pitcher, gained the victory. He left the game with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the 10th, but John Franco got the last two outs. The Reds trailed, 5–3, in the ninth before Gary Redus doubled in one run — his fourth run batted in of the game — and scored the tying run on a two-out single by Pete Rose.
The New York Mets lost to the Montreal Expos, 7–2, and the numbers tell the tale: They lost three straight to the Expos this weekend and six times in seven games on their worst trip in more than two years. They also have lost 11 of their last 14 games, and have lost four series in a row — to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Expos. And they headed home tonight in fourth place in the National League East, three and a half games out of first, where they had been for more than a month before starting to plunge in a siege of injuries and slumps. The newest casualty of the Mets’ collapse was Rick Aguilera, who started his first game in the big leagues and promptly was tagged for three runs before he got three outs.
Tom Lawless drew a bases-loaded walk to force in one run and Ozzie Smith squeezed home another in the fourth inning today to lead the St. Louis Cardinals past the Chicago Cubs, 5-2, for a sweep of their three-game series. The Cardinals made it four straight victories and eight in their last 10 games while the Cubs stumbled to their fifth straight defeat and dropped out of first place in the National League East.
Mike Schmidt’s run-scoring single capped a three-run sixth inning for Philadelphia that lifted the Phillies to a 3–2 triumph over Pittsburgh. The Pirates, with the worst record in the major leagues at 19–39, have lost 11 of their last 13 games. Charles Hudson (3–6) led off the sixth with a single for the Phillies against Rick Reuschel (3–1) and went to third on Juan Samuel’s single. Rick Schu doubled home the first run, Von Hayes’s sacrifice fly produced the second and Schmidt’s line-drive single to center put the Phillies ahead, 3–0.
The Giants took two from the Padres, 7–3 and 5–4. Chris Brown, whose four runs batted in led San Francisco to victory in the opener, won the second game with a two-out single in the bottom of the 13th inning as the Giants swept the doubleheader. Jeff Leonard blooped a triple down the right-field line with two out in the 13th off the reliever Mark Thurmond (3–6), who also started and lost the first game. Luis DeLeon replaced Thurmond and Brown lined the first pitch to right for his sixth hit of the day. In the opener, Brown led off the second with his third homer this season, giving the Giants a 3–1 lead.
Pedro Guerrero tied a team record by hitting a homer in his fourth consecutive game and Fernando Valenzuela pitched a six-hitter for Los Angeles as the Dodgers blanked the Astros, 9–0. Guerrero, who also doubled in a run, hit his 13th homer of the season and his eighth in his last nine games. His home runs in four consecutive games tied him with eight Los Angeles Dodgers and four Brookyln Dodgers for the team record. Valenzuela (6–7) snapped a personal three-game losing streak and gave the Dodgers a sweep of the three-game series.
Dwight Evans’s sacrifice fly capped a four-run eighth inning today as the Boston Red Sox rallied for a 7–6 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays that completed a four-game sweep of the American League East leaders. The Red Sox jumped on the Toronto relievers Jim Acker, Gary Lavelle and Bill Caudill in collecting their 13th victory in their last 14 games. The Red Sox now trail the Blue Jays by a three and a half games.
Wayne Gross hit two bases-empty home runs to lead a five-homer attack and Mike Boddicker pitched a six-hitter as Baltimore routed the Brewers, 9–1, and completed a four-game sweep and remained unbeaten under Manager Earl Weaver. Jim Dwyer hit a two-run homer during a three-run seventh, while Fred Lynn led off the eighth with a home run and John Shelby added a two-run homer later in the inning. The four-game winning streak ties the Orioles’ longest of the season. The current streak began Thursday, when Weaver ended a two-and-a-half-year retirement to replace Joe Altobelli, who was dismissed. Coach Cal Ripken Sr. handled the club for one game before Weaver took over Friday night.
Bob Shirley pitched a superb four-hitter that ended the Yankees’ four-game losing streak and beat the Detroit Tigers, 2–1, yesterday at Yankee Stadium. Shirley was engaged in a 1-1 duel with Randy O’Neal, the Detroit starter, until the bottom of the ninth when Rickey Henderson helped create the deciding run. O’Neal, working on a two-hitter, walked Henderson on a full count to start the inning. He then threw wildly to first base on a pickoff attempt to send Henderson to second base. He intentionally walked Ken Griffey, moved the runners into scoring position with a wild pitch and gave up a single to Dave Winfield to stop the Yankees’ slide and the Tigers’ six-game winning streak.
Barry Bonnell led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a double and scored on a single by Jim Presley for the winning run as the Mariners edged the Royals, 2–1. The Royals scored in the fifth against Bill Swift to make it 1–1. John Wathan led off with a double and scored on a single by Willie Wilson.
The Angels downed the White Sox 3–1. Reggie Jackson hit a bases-empty home run in the fourth inning and the rookie Urbano Lugo allowed three hits over eight innings for California. Jackson’s homer was the 511th of his career, tying him with Mel Ott for 12th place on the career major league list. It was his eighth of the season and first since May 11. The Angels got their second run in the sixth after walks to Jackson and Brian Downing. Bob Boone singled home Jackson.
The Twins powered their way to a 4–1 victory over the Rangers. Gary Gaetti hit a two-run homer, Greg Gagne hit a bases-empty shot and Ken Schrom scattered seven singles for Minnesota. Gaetti’s ninth homer broke a 1–1 tie in the sixth inning. It came after Tom Brunansky had walked.
The A’s swept their doubleheader in Cleveland with the Indians, winning the opener, 3–2, and then taking the nitecap, 11–6. Dwayne Murphy hit a two-run homer in the ninth inning to win the first game and Carney Lansford and Dusty Baker hit homers in the second game. Don Sutton (5–5) allowed two runs on nine hits in eight innings for the victory in the first game, his 285th career triumph.
Cincinnati Reds 6, Atlanta Braves 5
Milwaukee Brewers 1, Baltimore Orioles 9
Toronto Blue Jays 6, Boston Red Sox 7
Chicago White Sox 1, California Angels 3
St. Louis Cardinals 5, Chicago Cubs 2
Oakland Athletics 3, Cleveland Indians 2
Oakland Athletics 11, Cleveland Indians 6
Los Angeles Dodgers 9, Houston Astros 0
New York Mets 2, Montreal Expos 7
Detroit Tigers 1, New York Yankees 2
Philadelphia Phillies 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 2
Kansas City Royals 1, Seattle Mariners 2
San Diego Padres 3, San Francisco Giants 7
San Diego Padres 4, San Francisco Giants 5
Minnesota Twins 4, Texas Rangers 1
Born:
Nick Roach, NFL linebacker (Chicago Bears, Oakland Raiders), in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Zack Fitzgerald, NHL defenseman (Vancouver Canucks), in Two Harbors, Minnesota.
History Diaries 