A U.S.-Soviet sea pact is in jeopardy, Reagan Administration officials said. For the first time during the 14-year agreement on preventing dangerous escalation of incidents at sea, United States and Soviet naval officers have failed to hold their annual meeting. Administration officials said Moscow’s cancellation of the meeting following the Pentagon’s changing of the traditional terms for the session could jeopardize what they see as one of the most successful pacts between the countries. Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, who as Secretary of the Navy was one of the negotiators of the 1972 accord, said today that “It is imperative we proceed,” with the meetings. “We should not link the operation of the agreement to problems elsewhere in the world,” he said.
The Under Secretary of Agriculture, Daniel Amstutz, said here today that the Soviet Union and the United States had agreed to resume agricultural cooperation broken off after Soviet forces swept into Afghanistan in late 1979. He said at a news conference that an accord signed after two days of talks provided for exchanges of information, research and application of technology in a number of agricultural areas. The two countries already have an agreement regarding grain sales.
Former Italian intelligence officials and the Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Ağca denied today that Mr. Ağca had been involved in a deal to concoct testimony implicating Bulgaria and the Soviet Union in a conspiracy to kill Pope John Paul II. Last week, Giovanni Pandico, an admitted mobster testifying in a major trial against organized crime in Naples, accused the former deputy head of military intelligence, General Pietro Musumeci, of using underworld leaders to assure Mr. Ağca that he would be freed if he implicated the Soviet bloc in the shooting. Mr. Acga has already been convicted of the May 1981 shooting of the Pope. Mr. Ağca, testifying in the assassination-conspiracy trial here of four other Turks and three Bulgarians, said that “I have never met any member of the Camorra,” the organized-crime group in Naples. General Musumeci and other officials of the the Italian Defense Ministry’s intelligence unit are themselves on trial in Rome, accused of subverting the service to enrich themselves and to establish a kind of security network to hinder the Italian Communists from coming to power.
A Polish dissident says the Gdansk trial in which he and two other Solidarity activists were sentenced to prison terms showed that “fascism has knocked on the doors of Polish homes.” The Pole, the historian Adam Michnik, made the statement in an eight-page letter smuggled from his prison cell in Gdansk. He was sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment for fomenting unrest by appealing for a 15-minute strike to protest food price increases. The strike never took place.
Guerrillas hiding on a hilltop in Ulster blew up an unmarked police car with a remote-controlled 1,000-pound land mine, killing a traffic officer and wounding a second. The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the blast in Kinawley, near the border with the Irish Republic. The attack occurred hours before the scheduled funeral of a part-time policeman, Willis Agnew, shot to death by the IRA on Sunday. Leaders of the province’s two main Protestant parties have agreed to talks with Britain’s secretary for Northern Ireland, Douglas Hurd, on the latest round of violence there.
Josef Mengele and his son Rolf met for the first time when the son was 12 years old and on a ski holiday in Switzerland, according to information supplied to a Munich magazine by Rolf Mengele. Three years later, according to the weekly Bunte, the boy learned that the hard-skiing “uncle” introduced to him as “Helmut Gregor” was his father.
The Beirut hostages’ unconditional release was called for President Reagan. He vowed that the United States would never give in to terrorists. In a nationally televised news conference, he said “American will never make concessions to terrorists. To do so would only invite more terrorism.” He urged an extension of the American “armed sky marshal program” to international flights of domestic airlines.
Three more hostages were freed in Beirut by the hijackers of the Trans World Airlines jet. Two Americans and a Greek were released. About 40 other Americans were still being held, and there was no indication that talks to free them were near.
The U.S. called on the Red Cross to find out from Israel its plans for the release of the more than 700 Lebanese Shiite prisoners whose return has been demanded by the hijackers as a condition for freeing the 40 American hostages, White House officials said. They said Red Cross officials would confer tomorrow and Friday with President Reagan and Secretary of State George P. Shultz on the hostage crisis.
President Reagan meets with President of the Republic of Tunisia Habib Bourguiba.
Nabih Berri, leader of the Shia Muslim militia Amal, said his fighters have ended their siege of Palestinian refugee camps south of Beirut. Berri said he issued orders for “a final cease-fire” after Shia and Palestinian leaders signed a peace accord drawn up by Syrian officials. He added that a committee, made up of representatives from Amal, the Druze Progressive Socialist Party and the Palestinian Salvation Front, has been set up to monitor the truce.
Artillery and rocket exchanges between armed Palestinians and Shiite militiamen erupted today despite a cease-fire agreement worked out late Monday between Palestinian and Shiite combatants fighting for control of three Palestinian settlements here. he police said 3 people were killed and 35 wounded when residential areas around the Palestinian settlements and elsewhere in the Muslim area of Beirut were bombarded, apparently randomly.
Iran reported it has launched a second offensive in northern Iraq, killing or wounding scores of people, Tehran’s official news agency reported. It said Iranian troops mounted the new push near the town of Marivan, in the Kurdistan mountains. Iran said its other drive continued in the southern marshes, with advances to within 3 ½ miles of the strategic Iraqi road linking Baghdad and Basra.
The Soviet Union is withdrawing about 800 technicians from economic projects in Iran because of Iraqi air strikes and lack of progress in improving relations with the Tehran government, East European diplomats in Iran reported. The sources said 500 Soviet technicians, who were working on a steel mill in Esfahan and on power plants in Esfahan and Ahvaz, have already left. Completion of the Soviet pullout has been delayed by Iran, which has been slow to grant exit visas to the 300 other technicians scheduled to go, the sources added.
Up to 800 Soviet soldiers, many of them paratroopers and commandos, were wounded in a recent offensive against Afghan guerrillas in the Kunar Valley, Western diplomatic sources said in Islamabad, Pakistan. They gave no figures for Soviet deaths. In New Delhi, Western diplomats said Afghan rebels destroyed 20 Afghan military aircraft in an attack last week at Shindand, 450 miles west of Kabul. Soviet and U.S. diplomats, meanwhile, opened two days of Afghan talks at the State Department.
The Sri Lanka Government announced today that separatist guerrillas had agreed to a cease-fire, the first in more than two years of fighting. A spokesman for the Tamil Tigers Movement, the largest insurgent group, confirmed the agreement in a telephone interview from the southern Indian city of Madras. But he said he had no details of the accord.
Deng Xiaoping’s drive to rejuvenate the upper echelons of China’s bureaucracy gathered momentum today with the replacement of nine Government ministers, about a fifth of all officials holding ministerial rank. Mr. Deng has adopted far-reaching programs in many areas of life, including the economy, and has devoted much of his energy in recent months to a shake-up of the Government, party and military hierarchies. The most important phase of the shake-up will come in September, when a special party conference is scheduled to endorse changes in the party’s top organizations. But the last week has seen a drumbeat of new appointments that have testified to Mr. Deng’s political strength and to his determination to make good on his repeated remarks about the need for younger, better-qualified leaders.
Ontario’s Progressive-Conservative Party was ousted from power by a no-confidence vote in the Legislature, ending more than four decades of Tory control of Canada’s most populous province. The opposition Liberals and New Democrats joined forces on a 72-52 vote to topple the government of Premier Frank Miller. In return for the New Democrats’ support, the Liberals have pledged a comprehensive package of economic, legislative and economic reforms. Liberal leader David Peterson is expected to take over as premier next month.
The police today unearthed the bodies of two men they believe to be American citizens who disappeared from Guadalajara last January. Authorities said the men had been killed after being mistaken for informants by drug traffickers. A spokesman for the Mexican Attorney General’s office said the Federal Judicial Police made the discovery following testimony on Monday by five men accused of drug trafficking, including Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carillo. The spokesman said that forensic tests were under way to confirm the men’s identities, but that there was little doubt they were the missing Americans.
A new round of Central American peace talks among nine nations began today with officials divided on whether their efforts can resolve the region’s conflicts. With tensions increasing in Central America, Deputy Foreign Minister Jorge Urbina of Costa Rica said, “This is a trial by fire for the Contadora group.” A regional peace treaty was first proposed two and a half years years ago by Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama at a meeting on the Panamanian resort island of Contadora, from which the group takes its name. The treaty would commit Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to reduce arms imports, begin talks on arms reductions, get rid of foreign military advisers and bases, and hold free, democratic elections. Panamanian officials have described the latest two-day meeting as crucial to reaching an agreement. Only hours before the formal talks began, however, officials from the Central American nations, in separate news conferences, disagreed about what they expected to accomplish. They also criticized the Contadora nations for doing little to ease regional tensions.
Some 40 West Germans occupied the West German Embassy in Managua, Nicaragua today to press demands for the release of a West German woman said to have been kidnapped by Nicaraguan insurgents. The Interior Ministry issued a statement expressing fears that the woman, Regina Schmemann, faced death at the hands of her abductors. She disappeared Friday near Puerto Cabezas, and is believed to have been seized by Indian insurgents based in Honduras. She has been working in Nicaragua since 1981. The West Germans who occupied the embassy asked Ambassador Horst Heubaum to take action to obtain her release. The occupiers said the West German Government was in a good position to obtain Miss Schmemann’s release because the West German Embassy in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa had “very good relations” with the rebels.
A trial arising from the massacre of eight Peruvian journalists came to an abrupt halt today after the presiding judge was suspended from the case. Judge Hermenegildo Ventura Huayhua told reporters that the Supreme Court had suspended him for six months for purportedly disclosing details of the case to a Spanish paper. In Lima, the Supreme Court said in a communiqué that it had decided to suspend the judge at the request of the internal control office of the judicial branch. The reporters were killed in the hamlet of Uchuarracy while investigating human rights abuses in the region, which has been torn by fighting between Government forces and Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.
Thousands of Ugandans have been arrested, tortured and killed since 1981 when President Milton Obote returned to power in the wake of the overthrow of the brutal dictator Idi Amin, Amnesty International reported. The London-based organization said its research was corroborated by a surgeon and a forensic pathologist, who examined 16 former Ugandan prisoners now living in a neighboring African country and found medical evidence of rape, beatings, burnings, bayoneting and castration.
The House of Representatives voted tonight to bar the purchase of any additional MX missiles next year and to limit deployment of the intercontinental weapon to a total of 40. The vote was another setback in the Reagan Administration’s struggle to keep the MX missile alive. Last month, the White House reluctantly accepted a proposal in the Senate that would allow the purchase of 12 new missiles in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 and limit the operational force to 50 weapons. The Senate voted this limit last month. The details of a final compromise will be settled by a House-Senate conference, but today’s vote made it clear that both houses of Congress want to place tight restrictions on the MX program and end the decade-long debate over the missile. At his news conference tonight, President Reagan repeated his support for the MX missile and said it was vital to the modernization of America’s strategic force. “We need it,” he said.
President Reagan participates in his 30th Press Conference. President Reagan, vowing that the United States would never give in to terrorists, called tonight on Lebanese Shiite hijackers to release their American hostages without conditions. Speaking at a nationally televised news conference, he said: “American will never make concessions to terrorists. To do so would only invite more terrorism.” Then, in an obvious reference to Israel, he added, “Nor will we ask nor pressure any other government to do so.” The hijackers of the T.W.A. jet, seized Friday, have called for the release of 700 Lebanese Shiites detained in southern Lebanon and now being held in Israel.
President Reagan tonight firmly ruled out any increase in taxes, renewing his long-standing pledge against a tax increase as a deficit reduction step. The President, in a nationally televised news conference dominated by questions concerning American hostages held in Lebanon, dismissed any potential tax increase, a possibility that has been suggested by some on Capitol Hill to help reduce the Federal deficit.
The Reagan Administration’s budget director and the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee said this evening that they expect to resolve their differences over the water projects in the supplemental appropriations bill, thereby avoiding a Presidential veto. “I expect it will be resolved shortly,” said Senator Mark O. Hatfield, Republican of Oregon, chairman of the Appropriations Committee. “We will make some technical word changes but the bill will be intact. I say we have made great progress.”
William Bradford Reynolds, President Reagan’s nominee for Associate Attorney General, apologized four times today to the Senate Judiciary Committee for giving inaccurate or possibly misleading testimony about his record on civil rights. Mr. Reynolds said he “did, in fact, testify truthfully, honestly and straightforwardly to the best of my recollection on all questions that were asked of me” earlier this month. But on several points involving specific actions, he acknowledged “my recollection may have failed me.” The Judiciary Committee has 10 Republicans and 8 Democrats, and the vote on Mr. Reynolds is expected to be close. The nomination has become an urgent matter to the White House because Senate rejection of Mr. Reynolds would be seen as an unfavorable judgment on Mr. Reagan’s civil rights policies. In a radio broadcast Sunday, Mr. Reagan vigorously defended Mr. Reynolds as “a tireless fighter against discrimination.”
Efforts to recruit G.I.’s as spies have been stepped up by Soviet intelligence services and those of other Eastern European nations, according to the Army. Army officers said in interviews there 481 incidents last year in which soldiers reported being approached by suspected Soviet or East European intelligence officers, or by sympathizers in countries such as West Germany. That was a 400 percent increase over 1978, the officers said.
A satellite for Arab countries and the Palestine Liberation Organization was launched by the space shuttle Discovery. It followed the launching Monday of communications satellite for Mexico, one of the first jobs the Discovery crew accomplished at the start of their weeklong space mission. The satellite will serve 21 Arab nations. The P.L.O is a member of the Arab consortium in Saudi Arabia that financed the satellite.
The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a ban on using the fungicide Captan on food, five years after it began considering the idea, because the chemical produces tumors in mice and rats. Captan residues on food “may pose an unreasonable risk to public health” if consumed over a lifetime, the agency said. Captan, made principally by Chevron Chemical Co. and Stauffer Chemical Co., is used on apples, peaches, almonds and strawberries and is used to treat corn and soybean seeds and soil before planting. It also is used in paints, wallpaper paste, paper, textiles, shampoos and animal dusts, the EPA said.
More than 400 volumes of transcripts from the McMartin Pre-School molestation case were given to a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Monday after prosecutors challenged a ruling that could eliminate most of the charges against the school’s former teachers. The judge, Paul Turner, ordered the District Attorney’s office Friday to give him the records, which span the 10-month preliminary hearing, so he could rule on a decision regarding televised testimony.
Seven government whistleblowers alleged that a federal office meant to protect them has performed erratically at best and, at worst, made them open targets for retaliation by superiors. One of the seven, George R. Spanton, whose audits criticizing a jet engine manufacturer led to the firing of the head of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, told a House panel the special counsel of the Merit Systems Protection Board initially rejected his case before deciding to pursue it. He also said that he was told to get his own lawyer when he requested legal help.
Oil industry representatives urged Congress to resist proposed cuts in tax deductions for drilling costs or risk an energy squeeze that would make the drastic oil price increases of the 1970s look tame. “It would make 1973 and 1979 look like a cakewalk.” Charles J. DiBona, president of the American Petroleum Institute, told the House Ways and Means Committee as it weighed energy provisions of President Reagan’s tax plan. Domestic oil production would drop by 20% to 50% in five years if Congress dried up the deduction for “intangible drilling costs,” industry executives told the tax-writing panel.
Another 48 cases of AIDS were confirmed in Los Angeles County last month, raising the total number of victims of the deadly ailment in the county to 909. A report by county Health Director Robert Gates said 29 victims of acquired immune deficiency syndrome have died since late April, bringing the total fatalities to 476 — or 52% of all confirmed cases. Public health officials are investigating another 98 suspected AIDS cases, the report said. Los Angeles County has reported the third-largest number of AIDS victims in the nation. The New York area has 3,615 cases and San Francisco has 1,249, according to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The number of new cases listed for May is a slight drop from the 56 confirmed in April.
A neurosurgeon has been ordered to move from Beverly Hills for 30 days to one of the rundown apartments he owns after failing to improve them as the court had ordered. Judge Veronica Simmons McBeth of Municipal Court ordered the neurosurgeon, Dr. Milton Avol, to report first for a 30-day jail term on Thursday.
A federal appeals court in New Orleans threw out the conviction of Stacey Lynn Merkt, a religious worker who was arrested while driving two illegal aliens from El Salvador down a remote country road in Texas. A three-judge panel sent the case back to federal court in Texas for a new trial on charges of conspiracy and transporting illegal aliens. Merkt, 30, argued that she was merely taking the aliens to an immigration office to apply for political asylum.
Campbell Soup Co. and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee announced in Toledo, Ohio, that they secretly had reached an understanding last month that would end a six-year-old boycott of Campbell products by the farm workers’ union. Campbell will encourage growers to send representatives to a commission that will set up guidelines for elections on Ohio and Michigan farms that contract with Campbell, a Campbell spokesman said. However, growers would not be required to take part in the agreement.
Colombian financier Hernan Botero was found guilty in federal court in Miami on seven counts in what the government says was a $57-million money-laundering scheme. Botero, one of the first group of Colombians extradited under a new agreement between the United States and Colombia, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of making a false statement and five counts of mail fraud. His attorney said that the case would be appealed.
Church membership rose slightly in 1983, with an increase of less than 1 percent the National Council of Churches said. The figures, from 219 mainline denominations in the United States, most of them Protestant, show the collective membership at 140,816,385, and increase of 1,213,326 members.
Agriculture Secretary John R. Block declared an emergency today in response to possibly the worst grasshopper outbreak in this nation’s history and provided an additional $15 million to control the infestation in the West.
Major League Baseball:
The Braves edged the Astros, 3–2, as Zane Smith of Atlanta hurled hitless ball for 5 ⅔ innings and Glenn Hubbard provided the winning margin with a home run in the eighth inning. Smith lost his no-hit bid when Dickie Thon punched a single with two out in the sixth.
The Mets continued their rousing revival last night and made it two straight over the Cubs when Ed Lynch outpitched Steve Trout and sent the Cubs to their seventh loss in a row. It was the second straight complete game delivered by a pitching staff that had been torn apart by injuries and swoons. Ron Darling outdueled Rick Sutcliffe in the opener Monday by 2–0 before 41,986 fans in Shea Stadium. And Lynch, the steady but sometimes anonymous member of the staff, outdid Trout by 5–1 before 41,325 fans last night.
Larry McWilliams fired a three-hitter, and George Hendrick hit two doubles and drove in the winning run to lead Pittsburgh over the Expos, 4–1. McWilliams (4–5) ended a personal four-game losing streak. Hendrick’s first double came in the third inning and scored Johnny Ray to break a 1–1 tie. Hendrick’s second double came in the sixth and he scored on Marvin Wynne’s triple to make the score, 3–1.
The Cardinals downed the Phillies, 6–2. Tom Lawless drove in three runs with a pair of singles and Vince Coleman singled three times and scored twice, leading the surging Cardinals to their fifth straight victory and ninth in the last 11 outings. John Tudor (5–7) gave up six hits before leaving with none out in the ninth. Jeff Lahti shut the door on the Phillies after they scored a run on Bo Diaz’s run-scoring groundout. Steve Carlton (1–7) blanked the Cardinals until the fourth.
Dave Dravecky fired a three-hitter and Tim Flannery collected a pair of run-scoring singles for San Diego, as the Padres shut out the Dodgers, 4–0. Dravecky (6–4) held the Dodgers hitless until Steve Yeager grounded a single up the middle with two outs in the bottom of the fifth inning.
The Reds thumped the Giants, 6–1, at Candlestick. A spot starter, Frank Pastore, pitched a four-hitter and Cincinnati took advantage of two errors to score four unearned runs.
Ray Burris pitched a seven-hitter and Paul Molitor homered as the Milwaukee Brewers handed the Toronto Blue Jays their sixth straight defeat, 4–1. The Blue Jays were victimized by poor fielding, making four errors. With two outs in the fourth, the Brewers’ Robin Yount reached first on the shortstop Damaso Garcia’s fielding error and scored on Ted Simmons’s double. Earnest Riles then singled for a 2–0 lead.
Rickey Henderson continued to be a veritable one-man wrecking crew against the Orioles as he led the Yankees to a 6–4 victory tonight before 33,794 fans at Memorial Stadium. Henderson, hitting and running with abandon, led off the game with a double, then singled in the third and again in the fourth to give him eight hits in eight at-bats in the series. In his fourth time at bat, with a man at first in the sixth inning, he bounced into a forceout, which stopped his steak of reaching base safely at 10 straight, six short of the major league record set by Ted Williams in 1957. “Ted Williams, I knew it had to be one of the greats,” said Henderson, who said he knew of the record, but did not know who held it.
At Tiger Stadium, Detroit collects 18 hits as they edge the Red Sox, 9–8. Lance Parrish has a grand slam off reliever Bruce Hurst. The contest was a wild one with the Tigers rapping a season-high 17 hits and the Red Sox 11. Juan Berenguer (2–3), the third of four Tiger pitchers, picked up the victory. The Red Sox led, 7–4, when the Tigers made their move. Tom Brookens reached on a fielder’s choice with one out. Lou Whitaker doubled, sending Brookens to third, and Mike Trujillo replaced Bruce Kison. Trujillo gave up a run-scoring single to Alan Trammell that scored Brookens. Then Bruce Hurst walked Kirk Gibson to load the bases for Parrish.
Harold Baines led off the 13th with his fifth home run of the season, lifting Chicago to a 4–3 victory over the A’s and a hold on first place in the American League West. Baines, who had three hits and drove in two runs, hit a 2–0 pitch from the reliever Keith Atherton (3–2) into the upper right field stands to give Chicago its eighth victory in 10 games.
Reggie Jackson hit his 512th home run, moving him into a 10th-place tie on the career list with Ernie Banks and Eddie Matthews, as California rode a 20-hit attack to top the Indians, 7–3. Jackson’s sixth-inning home run, his ninth of the season, was a line shot over the left-center-field fence.
The Royals routed the Twins, 10–1. Mark Gubicza and Dan Quisenberry combined on a five-hitter and Frank White had three hits to drive in one run and score two for Kansas City. Quisenberry pitched the final two innings after Gubicza left with a slight strain in his groin.
The Rangers bested the Mariners, 8–5. Pete O’Brien doubled in the Rangers’ six-run first inning and homered in the second, and Gary Ward and Larry Parrish had three hits apiece. Frank Tanana (2–7) took a two-hitter into the sixth inning for Texas but gave up four singles and four runs.
Houston Astros 2, Atlanta Braves 3
New York Yankees 6, Baltimore Orioles 4
Oakland Athletics 3, Chicago White Sox 4
California Angels 7, Cleveland Indians 3
Boston Red Sox 8, Detroit Tigers 9
Minnesota Twins 1, Kansas City Royals 10
San Diego Padres 4, Los Angeles Dodgers 0
Toronto Blue Jays 1, Milwaukee Brewers 4
Pittsburgh Pirates 4, Montreal Expos 1
Chicago Cubs 1, New York Mets 5
Cincinnati Reds 6, San Francisco Giants 1
Philadelphia Phillies 2, St. Louis Cardinals 6
Seattle Mariners 5, Texas Rangers 8
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1304.77 (+6.38)
Born:
Chris Coghlan, MLB outfielder, third baseman, and second baseman (World Series Champions-Cubs, 2016; Florida-Miami Marlins, Chicago Cubs, Oakland A’s, Toronto Blue Jays), in Rockville, Maryland.
Sorel Carradine, American actress (“The Good Doctor”), daughter of Keith Carradine, in Los Angeles, California.
Jimmie Allen, American country music singer-songwriter (“Best Shot”, “Make Me Want To”), in Milton, Delaware.
History Diaries 