The Reagan Administration said today that it was “astonished” by what it called a thinly veiled threat by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, to suspend the Geneva arms control talks. In some of the sharpest language used against Mr. Gorbachev, the State Department charged him with “hypocrisy” and said his speech raised questions about Soviet sincerity in seeking an agreement at the arms control talks. It said that with the second round of the new Geneva talks nearing a close, the Soviet Union had yet to produce a concrete new proposal on reducing nuclear arms. In a speech in Dneproptrovsk on Wednesday, Mr. Gorbachev accused the United States of “marking time” in the Geneva talks. He said if this continued, the Soviet Union would have to “reassess the entire situation.”
Andrei D. Sakharov, the physicist and rights advocate, is “seriously ill,” according to a report here based on recent Soviet videotapes. The mass-circulation newspaper Bild said the two tapes show a physician in a Gorky hospital saying that Dr. Sakharov suffers from disturbance in the rhythm of the heartbeat and the beginning of Parkinson’s disease. Bild said the tapes had been provided by unidentified sources in Moscow.
France and West Germany will present a plan for closer European political unity at a two-day meeting of European leaders that opens here Friday, both Governments said today. In an announcement made in Paris and Bonn, the two Governments said the plan, in the form of a jointly drafted treaty of political cooperation, was aimed at speeding up decision-making in the 10-nation Common Market and laying the foundation for Europe’s eventual political unification. In Bonn, Chancellor Helmut Kohl spoke of creating “a United States of Europe,” telling the Parliament that “a free Europe must take the chance to unite.” He called the Milan meeting “a great opportunity,” adding, “We want to use it.”
President Antonio Ramalho Eanes of Portugal decided today to dissolve Parliament but plans to maintain the current Government for the moment, an official statement said. The decision followed a two-week-old Government crisis caused by the breakup of the ruling coalition. The statement, read by the President’s spokesman on television and radio, said Parliament would be dissolved after it approves the treaty of accession to the European Community. The accession treaty is due to be approved on July 10. Efforts by the President to find a solution to the crisis have been unsuccessful, the statement added.
The former leader of an organization of Turkish migrant workers in West Germany, accused of conspiring with Mehmet Ali Ağca to assassinate Pope John Paul II, said today that he was “never the head of a terrorist organization called the Gray Wolves.” Musa Serdar Celebi, testifying for the first time in the five-week-old trial, said of the Gray Wolves organization: “I don’t know if it exists. And if it does, it cannot be identified with the organization” in West Germany.
The Spanish Parliament enacted a law legalizing abortion today, ending a 40-year-old ban on the procedure in this predominantly Roman Catholic country. The lower house of Parliament voted 193 to 56 with eight abstentions to approve the law decriminalizing abortions in cases of rape or danger to the mother’s mental and physical health, or when the fetus is believed to be deformed.
The U.S. demanded that 7 Americans missing in Beirut be freed as part of any arrangement for the release of 39 airliner hostages. The announcement was made as the crisis entered its third week amid signs that snags had developed in talks with the Lebanese Shiite leader, Nabih Berri, and various governments and international organizations on how to resolve the standoff. Mr. Berri has said he is mediating on behalf on the Shiite hijackers who commandeered a Trans World Airlines jet June 14. The hijackers’ principal demand has been that Israel free more than 700 mainly Shiite detainees who have been held without charges for up to 19 months.
U.S. officials maintained silence on developments in the hostage crisis, canceled briefings on it for members of Congress and tried to mute criticism of the Reagan Administration’s policies by frustrated families of the hostages. The White House canceled briefings for members of Congress on the hostages. Officials in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon refused to answer virtually all questions about the crisis as negotiations reached a delicate stage.
France and Switzerland said in separate announcements today that they were willing to take the 39 American hostages into their Beirut embassies, but were not willing to act, in effect, as jailers. The French Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, said today that France could not take custody of the 39 Americans being held in Beirut unless they were turned over to the French as free men. In Bern, a Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Switzerland was willing to welcome the captives “in its embassy in Beirut, but without any conditions, and with the assurance of being able to freely transfer them to Switzerland or wherever, and release them.” Mr. Dumas, who made his comments on a radio interview here this morning, implicitly rejected an offer by the Lebanese Shiite leader, Nabih Berri, that the hostages be turned over to a Western embassy in Beirut on condition that they be held there until 735 detainees, most of them Lebanese Shiites, are released by Israel.
Senator Jesse Helms asserted today that Iran had set in motion the seizure of the Trans World Airlines plane 13 days ago and trained at least one of the original hijacking team. In a statement inserted in the Congressional Record, the North Carolina Republican said the gunman, Ali Atwa, was flown to Iran on May 5 and reportedly spent three weeks in training camps near Meshed and Teheran. On the day of the hijacking, at Athens airport, Mr. Atwa was a stand-by passenger and was unable to board the airliner. He was arrested by the Greek authorities after his two colleagues had hijacked the plane, but was later flown to Algiers to join the hijackers in exchange for some of the passengers aboard the T.W.A. plane.
The Shiite militia leader, Nabih Berri, told reporters today that he was “more optimistic” than ever that the two-week old hostage crisis could be ended soon “with American help.” Mr. Berri had no immediate response to the United States demand today that seven Americans who vanished in Beirut over the last 15 months be freed along with the 39 hostages from the hijacked Trans World Airlines jetliner being held in Beirut. Mr. Berri, who is Lebanon’s Justice Minister as well Minister of Water and Electricity and South Lebanon Affairs, has insisted that his Shiite militia, Amal, has had no control over the other abducted Americans.
An American businessman who has been detained in China for more than two months in connection with a hotel fire that killed 10 people has been formally arrested and charged with causing the blaze. Richard S. Ondrik, 34, of Houston, a representative of the Hong Kong firm, Energy Projects, Southeast Asia Ltd., was staying at the 15-story Swan Hotel in Harbin when a fire destroyed the 11th floor on April 19. Ondrik’s lawyer, Robert Goodwin, said his client was charged with causing the fire through negligence. It was not immediately clear why Chinese police waited two months to charge Ondrik, who faces a maximum term of seven years in prison if convicted.
An attorney who investigated the assassination of Benigno S. Aquino Jr. said that a new eyewitness has offered to support the testimony of a woman who says she saw a soldier shoot the Philippine opposition leader. Bienvenido Tan, deputy counsel to the civilian fact-finding board that investigated the August 21, 1983 killing, said he has seen a letter from the eyewitness and believes it to be authentic. Tan told reporters that the new witness, not named, will support the statements of Rebecca Quijano, who testified earlier that she saw a Philippine soldier shoot Aquino in the back of the head.
New airport security measures were outlined by Transportation Secretary Elizabeth H. Dole at a meeting in Montreal of the International Civil Aviation Administration. In the future, she said, curbside check-ins of luggage for international flights will be prohibited. The change eliminates a practice common only to United States airports. It was one of several new security measures outlined here today by Mrs. Dole at a meeting of the International Civil Aviation Administration. The United Nations agency, to which 156 countries belong, met at its headquarters in Montreal to discuss how to respond to the recent terrorist acts against commercial airlines and airports.
President Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative, an effort to shore up the area’s democracies through U.S. aid, is well into its second year but so far has met with only limited success, a private study said. “The results of the first year are disappointing,” the private Overseas Development Council said. Trade figures show that the countries that were to reap the benefits of duty-free access to U.S. markets, among other benefits, have been less successful than many other developing nations in increasing exports to the United States, according to the study.
Most public employees in Jamaica returned to work today after a general strike disrupted electricity, water and communications for three days. Large private factories and mills remained closed. The opposition party issued a statement today calling on Prime Minister Edward P. G. Seaga to resign. The six major unions that called the strike on Sunday represent 250,000 workers on this island of 2.2 million people. They rejected Mr. Seaga’s call Tuesday for a return to work. Mr. Seaga had said he would meet with union leaders after the strike ended.
The U.S. House of Representatives votes to limit the use of combat troops in Nicaragua. Caution on U.S. military involvement in Central America is evident among Representatives. The House voted, 312 to 111, to limit any move to use United States combat troops in Nicaragua, but only after it approved a series of Republican-sponsored provisions outlining conditions that would justify force. The Democratic whip, Thomas S. Foley of Washington, the sponsor of the measure, said that while the amended version would “technically” not hamper the President, it was a signal that Congress did not want military action without being consulted first. But many members on both sides of the issue said the diluted measure was a retreat from past House declarations on the use of force.
Salvadoran Army and legal officials said today that no action had yet been taken against a Salvadoran Army captain who has been accused in new testimony of helping to kill the head of the Salvadoran land redistribution institute and two Americans here in 1981. American Embassy officials have expressed concern that the captain, Eduardo Alfonso Avila, may flee the country before he can be detained. A spokesman for the Salvadoran Army said Captain Avila would be charged with desertion if he left the country, but acknowledged that he might still flee. The officials said the legal process against Captain Avila could take more than a year. The judge in the case has not yet ordered that the captain be detained, though he is expected to make a decision by next week.
The Bolivian Government warned today that strikes that have crippled two major cities and shut down the central bank also threaten to postpone the July 14 presidential elections. “Three weeks before the elections the country faces a difficult political situation that endangers the electoral process,” Planning Minister Freddy Justiniano said Wednesday. The government repeated the warning today. The civic committees of the cities of Santa Cruz and Chuquisaca began general strikes on Tuesday that have nearly paralyzed southeastern Bolivia. Both groups have demanded economic changes stemming from tax money the state owes them from oil refining.
Zimbabwe’s white minority, voting in larger-than-expected numbers, returned longtime leader Ian Smith to Parliament. Smith, 66, won a seat from the southwestern city of Bulawayo for his Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe by a more than 2-1 margin over the candidate of the Independent Zimbabwe Group. With six results announced in voting for 20 seats constitutionally reserved for whites in the 100-member House of Assembly, Smith’s party had won 3, the Independent Zimbabwe Group two and an independent candidate, Chris Anderson, one of two whites in Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s Cabinet, the other.
The Swedish, Norwegian and Danish governments have decided to cancel an air traffic agreement with South Africa, apparently to express their disapproval of the nation’s apartheid system. A statement issued by the three governments said that the weekly flights by Scandinavian Airlines System will end within six months. An SAS spokesman conceded that the Copenhagen-Nairobi-Johannesburg route is not particularly profitable but said that service to the Kenyan capital will continue.
The Senate next month will consider a resolution that would impose economic sanctions on South Africa unless “significant progress” in eliminating apartheid is made by March, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Indiana), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, announced. The resolution, introduced by Sen. Charles McC. Mathias Jr. (R-Maryland), was approved by the panel last spring. If it became law, it could ban U.S. investment in South Africa, the importation of Krugerrand gold coins and the export of U.S. computers to South Africa.
A Senate panel denied the nomination of William Bradford Reynolds to be Associate Attorney General in a vote widely regarded as a severe defeat for President Reagan and his civil rights policies. The vote was 10-to-8, with two Republicans and all eight Democrats on the Judiciary Committee rejecting Mr. Reynolds, who has been chief of the Justice Department’s civil rights division since 1981. The vote was quickly followed by two votes in which the committee refused to send the nomination to the Senate floor with either no recommendation or an unfavorable one. This appeared to kill the nomination, although in theory the full Senate could still bring it to the floor by a parliamentary device rarely used in such circumstances.
Peacetime spies would be executed under a change in military law overwhelmingly approved by the House. The measure is part of a flurry of proposed anti-espionage legislation prompted by Congressional concern over the arrests of four Navy men for espionage. The government has charged that a spy ring led by John A. Walker Jr. smuggled secret Navy documents to the Soviet Union for about 20 years. The amendment was adopted on a voice vote and would change military law, known formally as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to include a peacetime espionage statute. Two similar bills are now being considered in the Senate. The legislation could not be used retroactively against members of the accused ring.
Unions may not penalize members who resign during a strike, under a 5-to-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision, which upheld an interpretation of Federal labor law by the National Labor Relations Board, was a setback for organized labor. According to the A.F.L.-C.I.O, the number of unions that assess fines against members who resign when a strike is imminent or in effect is relatively small but growing as unions try to enforce solidarity in an unfavorable climate. Members who resign and return to work are typically assessed fines equivalent to their earnings during the strike.
David A. Stockman warned sharply that Federal budget deficits had become intractable and that sizable tax increases might be the only solution “consistent with fiscal sanity.” In an off-the-record speech, Mr. Stockman, the budget director, said the Reagan Administration and Congressional leaders of both parties had not been candid with their figures in calculating deficit reductions in two conflicting budget proposals.
President Reagan meets with Illinois Senator Alan Dixon to discuss an amnesty for delinquent taxpayers.
President Reagan meets with state and local officials to discuss tax reform.
Both houses of Congress voted to restore to the law books presidential power to control exports of high-tech products and other militarily useful goods that might end up in the Soviet Bloc. The House and Senate each gave voice-vote approval to a four-year extension of the 1979 Export Administration Act, ending what Senator John Heinz (R-Pennsylvania) called “innumerable, interminable” negotiations. President Reagan, who has wielded power over exports under an emergency declaration since April, 1984, was expected to sign the measure.
A top Environmental Protection Agency official acknowledged that some school asbestos cleanup efforts may worsen — rather than eliminate — health hazards posed by the cancer-causing material. EPA official Dr. John Moore told a House subcommittee that many contractors do not follow safety procedures in removing asbestos from school buildings. Rather than ripping out asbestos, Moore said schools should leave it in place if it is securely sealed within walls or ceilings.
The Environmental Protection Agency issued final rules today discouraging power plants’ use of tall smokestacks to disperse pollutants over long distances. Many coal-fired plants built tall stacks over the past 15 years as a means of complying with the Clean Air Act, which restricts the deposit of specific pollutants over the surrounding countryside. But dispersal of sulfur dioxide and other substances from the tall stacks has been found to cause acid rain and other environmentally damaging pollution. The new rules were immediately assailed as inadequate by some environmentalists, members of Congress and state officials, including Attorney General Robert Abrams of New York, who had hoped the E.P.A. would more sharply restrict overall sulfur dioxide emissions as a means of dealing with acid rain.
The National Security Agency’s top information security official said the Soviets can tap easily into business and government telecommunications networks to get vital secrets. Security expert Walter G. Deeley raised the possibility of wholesale computer raids by unfriendly forces as he defended a presidential directive to place tighter controls on sensitive computer and telephone systems. The United States “does poorly protecting its vital communications,” Deeley told a House subcommittee.
The U.S. Government rested its case today in fighting Gordon Hirabayashi’s effort to undo his 1942 conviction for defying the military law that forced 120,000 Japanese-Americans into internment camps. When he appealed to the Supreme Court in 1943, Mr. Hirabayashi contends, the government suppressed evidence that would have shown there was no necessity to intern all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast. The High Court upheld his conviction, although he is a United States citizen, on the ground of military necessity. Victor Stone, a lawyer for the government in this trial, told Federal District Judge Donald Voorhees how the War Department justified the constitutionality of the internment. He said intelligence derived from the cracking of the Japanese diplomatic code was the key.
The Navy, convening a board of general court-martial in Washington, formally charged Dr. Donal M. Billig with “culpable negligence” by bungling surgery that killed four heart patients at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. The Navy also charged Billig with 28 counts of dereliction of duty. The 28 counts all allege that Billig performed open-heart surgery without the presence of another cardiothoracic surgeon, as required.
The chief negotiator for American Motors said today that the company and the United Automobile Workers were making progress in contract talks on the eve of a company-imposed deadline for keeping its Wisconsin plants open. “There have been adjustments made on both sides,” said the bargainer, Richard Calmes, but he added that there was much to discuss as the two sides sat down to consider the company’s latest contract proposal.
The biggest nonnuclear explosion ever set off by a non-Communist country hurled a gigantic mushroom cloud above the New Mexico desert. The blast was created by a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. Officials said that such eight-kiloton explosives were now standard tactical weapons and that the test was a fair gauge of the battlefield use of a nuclear weapon.
Veritable supermarkets of guns are available at several hundred to perhaps 1,000 weapons shows around the country each year. At a show in Dallas, hundreds of dealers and private collectors filled 1,700 tables with a range of items, including .50-caliber machine guns, crossbows, blowguns, brass knuckles, 50,000-volt stun guns and a kit of chemicals to make 20-odd gallons of napalm.
A 27-year-old man was sentenced in Dallas to life in prison for a robbery in which he used a stun gun. Joseph Smith Horton was the first person in Dallas County tried for any crime involving the device, officials said. Horton and Raymond Miles were charged with robbing a Dallas store on April 17 of about $1,000 while armed with a stun gun and a pistol. Miles, who remains at large, allegedly pointed the pistol at a cashier while Horton used the stun gun to jolt the man for five to seven seconds.
The 51 million pounds of uranium buried or released into the air from a Government weapons plant here over almost three decades poses a minimal health risk, according to a Department of Energy report. It said people living within 50 miles of the Y-12 plant are exposed to less radiation than they would get from normal exposure to the sun’s rays and other naturally occurring radiation.
Thousands of workers voted to accept a settlement ending the first New York City hotel strike in 47 years, and their union leader said that many of them would be back on the job by today. The ratification ended a 26-day walkout that forced tourists and businessmen at such deluxe hotels as the Plaza, the Waldorf-Astoria and the Pierre to carry their own bags and dine elsewhere. The contract agreement affects 25,000 union members working in 165 hotels and raises wages and benefits more than 30% over five years.
Route 66 (Chicago to Santa Monica), is decertified. This occurred after the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) decertified the road and voted to remove its highway signs. Route 66 stretched through eight states, with its beginnings traced to the 19th century. Today, drivers can still use 85% of the road, and Route 66 has become a destination for tourists from all over the world, according to the National Historic Route 66 Federation.
Major League Baseball:
The Chicago Cubs, relishing life on the sunny side of a 13-game losing streak, made it two straight over the Mets today when Rick Sutcliffe outpitched Ron Darling and won, 4–2. Five of the six runs in the game were produced by bases-empty home runs, three by the Cubs, two by the Mets. But the Mets got only three other hits off Sutcliffe, all singles, and headed for St. Louis with four losses in their last five games, including two of three in a rousing series in Wrigley Field. But, in a season filled with trials, the Mets left Chicago with a great deal more on their minds than the revived Cubs. And Manager Dave Johnson, showing agitation over injuries that have dispersed his outfield, said: “We’ve got to make decisions in the next day or two and live with them for the rest of the season.”
San Francisco’s Jeffrey Leonard hits for the cycle in a 7–6 loss to the Reds. He is the first Giant to do so since Dave Kingman in 1972. Wayne Krenchicki drove in three runs with a homer, a double and a single to help Cincinnati hand the Giants their seventh consecutive loss. Krenchicki hit his second homer, in the second inning, and doubled and scored to start a two-run fourth off Jim Gott (3–5), who took his fifth loss in his last six decisions. Krenchicki also singled home a run in a two-run fifth that put the Reds ahead, 7–4.
Tim Raines hit a two-run homer and Jeff Reardon earned his major league-leading 22nd save as the Montreal Expos beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4–2, tonight. David Palmer (6–6) checked the Pirates on seven hits over the first six innings, but appeared to tire in the seventh when Pittsburgh struck with two out for both of its runs. Joe Orsulak tripled and scored on Johnny Ray’s single before Jason Thompson hit a run-scoring double off the right-field wall. Tim Burke came on to strike out George Hendrick and pitched one and a third innings before Reardon pitched the ninth.
Claudell Washington and Terry Harper each cracked two hits and scored once as Atlanta defeated the slumping Astros, 4–1. Zane Smith (4-4) was the winner, pitching five innings and giving up one run on five hits. Bruce Sutter pitched the last two innings for his 14th save. The loser, Nolan Ryan (8-5), pitched seven innings and struck out seven to increase his career strikeout mark to 3,983, putting him 75 strikeouts ahead of Steve Carlton.
Willie McGee, the National League’s leading batter, hit a triple and two singles, walked and scored three runs for St. Louis as the Cardinals edged the Phillies, 4–3. The loss broke a five-game Philadelphia winning streak. The Cardinals took a 1-0 lead in the first when McGee tripled and scored on Tommy Herr’s infield out. They made it 2-0 in the fourth on McGee’s single and a three-base error by the shortstop Derrel Thomas on Herr’s grounder, which rolled all the way to the left-center field wall. St. Louis made it 3-1 in the sixth as McGee walked, took second on a groundout and scored on Jack Clark’s double. In the seventh, Ozzie Smith hit a homer to make it 4-1.
The Padres downed the Dodgers, 5–4. Kevin McReynolds drove in three runs with a homer and a two-run single, and Jerry Royster singled in the game-winning run in the sixth inning. Royster’s game-winning hit came against Fernando Valenzuela (7-8) and drove in Garry Templeton, who had singled and stolen second. The Padres beat Valenzuela for the second time this year, reaching the Dodger left-hander for nine hits and six walks and all five runs in the six innings he worked.
The Padres trade second baseman Alan Wiggins to the Orioles for pitcher Roy Lee Jackson and a player to be named later. Wiggins, who recently completed his second stay at a drug rehabilitation center, was never reactivated by the Padres, who vowed that he would never play for them again.
In the only scheduled American League game today, the Blue Jays topped the Brewers, 7–3. Jesse Barfield drove in two runs, walked twice and stole two bases to pace Toronto. Willie Upshaw, who entered the game batting .217, went 3-for-4 with a double and two singles. Jimmy Key (6-2) worked five and two-thrids innings and allowed three runs on seven hits and three walks to record his sixth consecutive victory. Jim Acker worked the final three and a third innings to earn his ninth save.
New York Mets 2, Chicago Cubs 4
San Francisco Giants 6, Cincinnati Reds 7
Atlanta Braves 4, Houston Astros 1
St. Louis Cardinals 4, Philadelphia Phillies 3
Montreal Expos 4, Pittsburgh Pirates 2
Los Angeles Dodgers 4, San Diego Padres 5
Milwaukee Brewers 3, Toronto Blue Jays 7
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1332.21 (+8.40)
Born:
Nico Rosberg, German Finnish race car driver (F1 World Champion, 2016), in Wiesbaden, West Germany.
Svetlana Kuznetsova, Russian tennis player (U.S. Open, 2004, French Open, 2009), in St. Petersburg, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Mike Angelidis, Canadian NHL centre and left wing (Tampa Bay Lighting), in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada.
Vojtěch Polák, Czech NHL left wing (Dallas Stars), in Ostrov nad Ohri, Czechoslovakia.
Steve Edlefsen, MLB pitcher (San Francisco Giants), in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Coby Linder, American pop-punk drummer (Say Anything), in Santa Monica, California.
History Diaries 