The 39 Americans who were held captive after the hijacking of their Trans World Airlines jet were welcomed early this morning at an American air base by Vice President Bush. The United States Air Force C-141 Starlifter cargo jet on which they flew six and a half hours from Damascus touched down at the giant Rhein-Main Air Base at 5:24 AM. Minutes later, as several hundred American servicemen and their relatives cheered, Mr. Bush climbed a small ladder into the plane to chat with the Americans. John L. Testrake, who had been the captain on the hijacked T.W.A. flight, was the first liberated hostage to climb down the ladder onto the tarmac of the air base, which is adjacent to Frankfurt’s international airport. He was followed by his comrades in the ordeal, who wove through a receiving line of dignitaries headed by Mr. Bush and his wife Barbara. Some of the men had thrown blankets over their shoulders for warmth.
President Reagan plans to welcome the returning American hostages tomorrow afternoon in a ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland, the White House said today. At the same time, Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said the United States was also seeking the release of seven Americans missing in Lebanon over the last 15 months. “The United States is still dedicated to securing their freedom,” he said. “We hope to increase our intelligence capabilities in it. We hope to utilize other nations that might have an influence in the situation.”
An automobile loaded with tanks of propane gas exploded in a parking lot outside Athens and destroyed four cars, three of them belonging to people working at U.S. military installations. No one was reported injured in the early morning blast outside the Apollon Palace Hotel in the southern suburb of Kavouri, and no one immediately claimed responsibility. At least 10 cars belonging to U.S. military personnel have been set ablaze in the last six months. The presence of U.S. military bases has been controversial in Greece, and Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou has pledged to order their removal in 1988, when a joint defense pact expires.
Grigory V. Romanov is no longer regarded as a serious contender for the Soviet leadership. He was dropped from the top Communist hierarchy for what were said to be reasons of health. Mr. Romanov’s resignation was announced at a Central Committee meeting that promoted Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the 57-year-old Georgian leader, to full membership in the ruling Politburo.
Meat prices were raised by as much as 15 percent today, completing a four-month cycle of food price increases that have been the focus of agitation by clandestine activists. The underground wing of the Solidarity movement had called for strikes to protest the meat price increases, but there was no indication that the appeals were widely followed. The office of the Government spokesman and the officials from the Government-established unions, which have been saying that they have kept price rises low, said there were no work stoppages. More persuasive evidence, however, was the absence of massed police forces in industrial sections of the capital and other cities.
Mehmet Ali Ağca reversed himself today and agreed to answer more questions in the trial of himself and seven other men on charges of conspiring to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Once on the witness stand, Mr. Ağca also changed his story again. This time, he said there was a fourth Turkish conspirator in St. Peter’s Square when he shot the Pope on May 13, 1981. Mr. Ağca, a 27-year-old Turk who is the star witness against three Bulgarians and four Turks charged with complicity in the shooting, said last week during his 12th day of testimony that he would not answer any more questions.
Europe’s study of Halley’s Comet is set to begin. With the celebrated comet drawing ever closer, now 400 million miles from the Earth, the Europeans are scheduled to dispatch their first interplanetary spacecraft today as part of a wide international effort to visit and study the celebrated comet next March.
Airlines terrorism increased in Europe. One woman was killed and at least 27 people were wounded by a bomb that destroyed the downtown offices of British Airways in Madrid. Minutes later, two gunmen sprayed the nearby office of Jordan’s national airline with bullets, wounding two people. Eight hours later, 12 people were wounded in Rome in an explosion in a baggage area at Leonardo da Vinci Airport.
Israel decided to release 300 of its 735 Lebanese and Palestinian detainees, mainly Shiite Muslims, over the next two days, according to officials in Jerusalem. Freedom for the detainees, whom Israel has been holding without charges for up to 20 months, was the principal demand of the Lebanese Shiites who hijacked an airliner and took a group of Americans hostage.
A plan “to isolate” Beirut’s airport will be pressed, the United States announced in response to the hijacking of the Trans World Airlines jet. The campaign will be diplomatic, and there was no sign that any American military action would be taken, at least at this time.
President Reagan attends a National Security Planning Group meeting to discuss strategies for getting the 7 kidnapped Americans returned from Lebanon.
President Reagan attends a Cabinet Council meeting to discuss the hostage situation in Lebanon.
The hijackers separated U.S. servicemen from the other passengers aboard the Trans World Airlines jet and intended to kill them one by one, according to some of the 39 former hostages who are recovering in Wiesbaden, West Germany, from their 17-day ordeal. They said the decision to kill a Navy diver, Robert Dean Stethem, was part of an effort to force the Shiite Amal militia to cooperate in the hijacking to insure it would not be halted.
Beirut’s two most powerful militias fought each other with grenades, heavy machine guns and automatic weapons, killing six people and wounding 16, police said. The Druze Progressive Socialist Party, headed by Tourism and Transportation Minister Walid Jumblatt, and the Shia Muslim Amal militia of Justice Minister Nabih Berri began fighting during the morning rush hour and forced thousands of people to stay home while others were trapped in businesses and offices. The fighting reportedly erupted over the Amal kidnapping of two members of the Druze militia. After six hours, Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam telephoned Berri and Druze officials, and they agreed on a cease-fire, militia sources said.
The role of Syria’s President, Hafez al-Assad, in resolving the Beirut hostage crisis has temporarily improved his image in Washington and generated hope that better relations might be possible, according to senior United States officials.
Israel called an economic emergency after a 20-hour Cabinet meeting and imposed a wide series of austerity measures intended to break the country’s 260 percent inflation. The Histadrut labor union federation, with 1.6 million members, immediately responded to the austerity program by calling a national one-day general strike today.
Iran said today that Iraqi warplanes attacked a Kurdish refugee camp, ending a 15-day Iraqi halt to raids on Iranian civilian centers in the Persian Gulf war. Iraq said Sunday night that it would resume air and missile raids on targets deep inside Iran until what it called a “just” peace was achieved under conditions set by the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein. The Iranian national press agency said Iran would retaliate if Iraq carried out the threat. Later, the agency said said two Iraqi planes had attacked the refugee camp at Ziveh, near the Iraqi border, killing one civilian and wounding 10.
Prosecutors in the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. assasination case said today that they would appeal to the Philippine Supreme Court to reverse the trial court’s rejection of evidence against General Fabian C. Ver, the suspended Philippine Chief of Staff, and seven others charged with a cover-up in the killing of the opposition leader. The chief prosecutor, Bernardo Fernandez, said at a news conference at the end of the trial session today that the appeal was “to the best interests of the public.” General Ver’s counsel, Antonio Coronel, said in an interview last week that he would move for dismissal of the charges. “The only evidence against my client,” he said, “consists of his testimony before the fact-finding board, which the court has rejected.”
A senior Cuban minister was dismissed in a continuing government shake-up that is expected eventually to lead to a more prominent role for Fidel Castro’s younger brother, Raul. Humberto Perez Gonzalez, who has headed the Central Planning Board for the last seven years, was replaced by Construction Minister Jose Lopez Moreno, described by Cuban sources as a young technocrat. They said that Raul Castro, senior vice president and defense minister, will be given a greater say in operations, perhaps as prime minister, a post now held by President Castro.
The pro-American governing party of Prime Minister Mary Eugenia Charles won a second five-year term, though with a slightly reduced majority, on the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica. Election officials said the Dominica Freedom Party captured 15 of 21 seats at stake, while the opposition Labor Party led by Michael Douglas took 5 and the United Dominica Labor Party the other. The prime minister’s party won 17 seats in 1980 elections.
In a new display of rebel disunity, the top civilian leader allied with El Salvador’s leftist guerrillas criticized last month’s rebel attack on San Salvador cafes that killed 13 diners, including four U.S. Marines. Guillermo Ungo, president of the Revolutionary Democratic Front, said, “The operation was incorrect in where it took place and how it took place.” He emphasized, however, that his criticism does not imply a break with the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the guerrilla combat organization. Last week, another rebel political faction criticized the attack.
The Zimbabwean Government announced today that it would extend by two days the voting period in the first elections since independence because of an unexpectedly large turnout. Government officials said they would extend balloting through Thursday. Voting was originally to begin this morning and end at 7 PM Tuesday. Officials said about 500,000 voters had turned out by early evening at polling places throughout the country, forming lines up to seven miles long at some locations. The election pits Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front against the Zimbabwe African People’s Union headed by Joshua Nkomo.
Thousands of rioting black miners were dispersed in South Africa with the use of shotguns, rubber bullets and tear gas. The violence in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State-growing out of a pay dispute-has led to wildcat strikes involving 20,000 workers in the nation’s most important industry. Balloting is under way on whether the black National Union of Mineworkers will authorize a strike in the gold mines. Police and mine security guards fired birdshot and tear gas to disperse crowds of protesters.
While ruling that the Constitution does not give the mentally retarded special protection against official discrimination, the Supreme Court nonetheless concluded today that a Texas city’s denial of a zoning permit for a home for the retarded was so irrational as to be unconstitutional. All nine Justices agreed that the zoning permit was unconstitutionally denied. The Court divided 6 to 3 on the underlying question of what constitutional standard to apply in analyzing the problem.
The High Court rebuffed parochial schools, striking down two public assistance programs for them, mostly on votes of 5 to 4. The Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for public school systems to send teachers into parochial school classrooms to provide remedial or enrichment instruction.Such programs, the Court said, forge a “symbolic union of government and religion” that is forbidden by the Constitution.
Space officials chose six women and four men as finalists for a teacher-in-space shuttle flight next January. The finalists, none of them from California, were chosen from more than 10,000 teachers who applied nationwide and range in age from 33 to 45. Those selected will be flown to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Sunday, for medical tests, briefings and a flight in the KC-135 training plane.
The National Conservative Foundation said it will spend at least $250,000 — and perhaps as much as $1 million — in an advertising campaign of 60-second commercials to convince people that the major U.S. news organizations have a liberal bias. Terry Dolan, foundation chairman, said at a Washington news conference to announce the ads that conservatives don’t get a fair shake from the television networks, major daily newspapers and wire services because all are too liberal.
One of the Reagan Administration’s principal efforts to stop drug smuggling has accomplished little in its first two years, a General Accounting Office report has concluded. The program, directed by Vice President Bush, was set up in 1983 to coordinate efforts to enforce drug laws.
Artificial heart patient William J. Schroeder, 53, has taken his first outings since suffering a second stroke and may be discharged from the hospital again, a spokeswoman for Humana Hospital Audubon said in Louisville, Kentucky. The Jasper, Indiana, man, who has lived the longest on the artificial heart, had been moved to a specially equipped apartment across the street from the hospital, but was readmitted after the stroke May 6, his second since receiving the Jarvik-7 heart on November 25.
Ramona Johnson Africa, the only adult MOVE member to escape the fiery May 13 battle with Philadelphia police, defiantly told a municipal judge it was Mayor W. Wilson Goode who committed crimes during the May 13 incident in which 11 MOVE members died. Africa refused to give her age and uttered occasional profanities during the proceeding, held to decide whether there is enough evidence to hold her for trial. She faces 28 counts under 11 separate charges and has had her bail raised from $3.25 million to $4.5 million. The hearing was recessed until today.
Pickets appeared at welfare and unemployment offices across Pennsylvania as two unions representing 11,000 state workers walked off the job while considering a new contract offer. The Pennsylvania Social Services Union and the Pennsylvania Employment Security Employees Association, which represent welfare, social and unemployment office workers, broke with 11 other unions and declared a strike. Despite the strike, all welfare and unemployment offices were open, according to Governor Dick Thornburgh’s Administration.
About 4,500 workers went on strike and vowed to stay out “as long as it takes to get a decent contract,” halting production of guided missile destroyers at the Bath, Maine, Iron Works shipyard, a major Navy contractor. Union officials said the company is demanding a three-year wage freeze, steep reductions in medical benefits, greater ability to shift workers among job classifications and a two-tier pay scale that would start new employees at lower pay.
The public believes that teachers should receive higher salaries and is willing to pay higher taxes to provide them, according to a poll by the Gallup Organization. The poll, made public today by the National Education Association, also showed support for competency testing for teachers. Those surveyed were asked to say how much they thought experienced teachers should be paid. The median figures, the poll said, were $27,000 for elementary school teachers and $29,000 for high school teachers. The association said the average elementary school teacher earned $23,092 in the 1984-85 school year; the figure for secondary school teachers was $24,276.
Many public school districts aid nonpublic schools with programs similar to those declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Specialists suggested ways to resolve the problem by busing private school pupils to public schools for after-school instruction or delegating instruction to private contractors.
Officials approved higher Medicare payments for hospitals serving large numbers of poor people. The Reagan Administration acted reluctantly under pressure from Congress and a Federal judge.
Defense motions to dismiss molestation charges against teachers in the McMartin Pre-School case, to release the two defendants who remain in jail, or to terminate a stay of proceedings in the preliminary hearing were denied by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Paul Turner. The defense had argued that the hearing has been illegally interrupted and delayed, most recently over the issue of whether remaining child witnesses may testify by closed-circuit television. Turner said he probably will decide next week whether Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb erred when she ruled out the use of televised testimony.
Inmates armed with homemade knives and chains looted and burned three buildings at the Turney Center prison in Tennessee today and then took several other inmates hostage, in what began as a protest against a new law requiring them to wear striped uniforms, the authorities said. One inmate was stabbed and another suffered a heart attack as about 600 men became involved in the disturbance, said John Taylor, a spokesman for the state Corrections Department. Both were in good condition at the prison clinic, he said.
Leaders of a state task force proposed stiff new requirements for improving the teaching of math and science in California’s public schools. Nobel Laureate Glenn Seaborg of the University of California and Howard Annin, vice president of General Electric Co., presented the recommendations to the governor’s office. They include credentialing retired business and military people and graduate students to teach math and science at least part-time on the secondary level, and requiring prospective teachers in the two subjects to have completed math and science college courses and competency examinations.
As residents of the Mission Valley community of Normal Heights, in San Diego, California, returned to pick through the remains of their charred neighborhood, fire officials announced today that Sunday’s fire was caused by an incendiary device in the brushy canyon below. The fire destroyed 63 wood frame and stucco homes and 17 other buildings and damaged at least seven other buildings. Meanwhile, at least five new blazes broke out today in California. A fire that started about noon Sunday scorched a path six miles long and three miles wide in the Mount San Miguel area about 35 miles south of Normal Heights, destroying three homes and covering more than 8,000 acres of brush in the sparsely populated area.
Recent regional maps produced by the Environmental Protection Agency show the acid rain problem in the Northeast and upper Midwest to be worse than originally thought, environmental groups charged. “The maps show that surface waters susceptible to damage from acid rain are more seriously endangered and distributed over a broader geographic area than previously reported,” said Susan Buffone of the National Clean Air Fund. Research specialist Deborah Sheiman said, “the difference is startling” between the earlier national map and the latest two regional maps.
The Generals’ season came to an end here tonight as the Baltimore Stars beat them, 20-17, in a first-round playoff game that was a mix of offensve blunders and defensive gems. “We were the ones who made the last mistake,” said Walt Michaels, the Generals’ coach. His reference was to a late interception of a pass thrown by Ron Reeves, the quarterback Michaels had chosen over the ailing Doug Flutie. That interception by Mike Lush, the Stars’ free safety, at the Baltimore 13, came with 63 seconds left as the Generals were driving to gain position for a tying field-goal attempt.
Major League Baseball:
Darrell Evans hit a two-run homer, and Kirk Gibson and Larry Herndon added bases-empty shots as Detroit beat Baltimore, 7–1, behind the pitching of the rookie Randy O’Neal and Willie Hernandez. The loss was Baltimore’s third in as many games against the Tigers this season and gave the Orioles a dismal 5–16 record against the American League East Division contenders Toronto, Detroit, New York and Boston.
Today, before a Canada Day crowd of 41,476 at Exhibition Stadium, Joe Cowley pitched eight innings, allowing only three hits and two walks as the Yankees defeated the Blue Jays, 4–1. Don Mattingly’s bases-empty home run gave the Yankees a 2–1 lead in the eighth, and two more runs in the ninth secured the victory as New York snapped a two-game losing streak and pulled to within six and a half games of the Blue Jays, who lead the American League East. Dave Righetti earned his 14th save, and Doyle Alexander (7–5), a former Yankee, took the loss.
Cecil Cooper hit two doubles, including one that drove in two runs in the first inning, and Pete Vuckovich and Bob Gibson combined on a five-hitter to lead Milwaukee over slumping Boston, 5–1. Vuckovich (3–5) gave up the Boston run and all five hits and Gibson pitched hitless ball over the final three innings as the Brewers won their third game in a row and handed the Red Sox their third consecutive loss and 10th in the last 13 games.
Pete O’Brien hit a home run and two doubles, driving in five runs to help the rookie Glen Cook and Texas defeated California, 10–5. Cook (2–0) pitched six innings to pick up his second victory in as many starts. He gave up all five California runs on 10 hits, including Ruppert Jones’s three-run homer in the sixth.
George Vukovich belted a three-run homer, and Jerry Willard stroked a run-scoring double as Cleveland topped Minnesota, 5–2. The victory marked the first time the Indians had won back-to-back games since May 19 and snapped the Twins’ four-game winning streak. Vern Ruhle (2–3) struck out two and walked one over six and one-third innings to notch the victory.
Dusty Baker hit a three-run homer with two out in the ninth inning off the relief ace Dan Quisenberry to give Oakland a 4–3 victory over the Royals. Rob Picciolo opened the ninth with a single off Danny Jackson (6–5), the Royals’ starter, and Alfredo Griffin followed with a sacrifice bunt and was safe when Jackson’s throw to second was late. The Royals summoned Quisenberry and he retired Donnie Hill on a sacrifice and Carney Lansford on a foul pop to first, but Baker lined a 2-and-1 pitch into the left-field bullpen for his 10th homer of the year.
The Mariners edged the White Sox, 3–1, as Al Cowens of Seattle hit a three-run homer with one out in the eighth to break up a scoreless tie. The loss was the sixth in a row for the White Sox and the eighth in a row at home, their longest losing streak at Comiskey Park since 1976. The game marked the 75th anniversary of baseball’s oldest park. The Mariners moved into fourth place, ahead of Chicago.
At Jack Murphy Stadium, Bruce Bochy hits a two-out walk off homer off Houston Astro’s Nolan Ryan in the bottom of the tenth for a 6–5 San Diego Padres win. It’s the only walk off home run Ryan allowed in 807 appearances. Bochy clubbed the first pitch from Nolan Ryan (8–6) into the left-field seats for his third home run of the year. The blow made a winner of Rich (Goose) Gossage (2–1), who came in to pitch the 10th for the Padres. The Padres trailed 5–4 going into the ninth inning, but loaded the bases with none out off Ryan and tied the game on a sacrifice fly by the pinch-hitter Kurt Bevacqua. Ryan struck out seven to bring him within 10 of 4,000 career strikeouts.
Andre Dawson’s 10th-inning single scored Jim Wohlford to give the Expos a 3–2 victory today over the St. Louis Cardinals. Montreal moved to one-half game behind the first-place Cardinals in the National League East. Wohlford drew a one-out walk from Rick Horton (0–2), went to second when Tim Raines walked, and advanced to third on Mitch Webster’s fly to deep right field. Dawson then lined a 1-and-1 pitch from Bob Forsch, the Cardinals’ sixth pitcher, to score Wohlford.
The bad news came in cascades for the Mets tonight in Shea Stadium. First, they lost their sixth straight game when the Pittsburgh Pirates beat them, 1–0, and they were tamed by a 36-year-old pitcher with a long history of shoulder trouble. Then they placed Mookie Wilson on the disabled list, scheduled arthroscopic surgery tomorrow on his sore right shoulder and said he would be gone for six weeks.
Ray Fontenot scattered seven hits in seven innings and the catcher Steve Lake squeezed home the winning run with a sixth-inning bunt as Chicago beat Philadelphia, 3–1. Fontenot (3–3) struck out four and walked two before giving way to Lee Smith, who pitched the last two innings for his 17th save. Smith struck out five batters, including the beleaguered slugger Mike Schmidt with runners on first and second with two out in the ninth.
The Braves whipped the Giants, 4–1, at Candlestick. Dale Murphy hit his 19th home run, and the rookie Zane Smith (5–4) allowed three hits in seven and two-thirds innings for Atlanta. Murphy’s homer, a two-run drive off Mike Krukow (5–6) in the third inning following a single by Claudell Washington, gave the Braves a 2–0 lead. Terry Harper hit a homer in the fourth to make it 3–0.
Orel Hershiser fired a four-hitter, and Greg Brock hit a three-run homer to lead Los Angeles past Cincinnati, 8–1. Hershiser (8–2) allowed the Reds only a single by Pete Rose in the fourth inning until Wayne Krenchicki led off the eighth with a single. The Reds eventually scored their only run on a run-scoring single by Eddie Milner. Rose’s single put him within 38 hits of breaking Ty Cobb’s major league record of 4,191.
Steve Howe, the Dodger relief pitcher, was called “incapable of handling his assignment” by club officials today, one day after he failed to show up for a game against the Braves. The 27-year-old left-hander, who was suspended for the 1984 season because of cocaine use, met early today with Dodger officials to discuss his absence from Sunday’s game.
Detroit Tigers 7, Baltimore Orioles 1
Seattle Mariners 3, Chicago White Sox 1
Oakland Athletics 4, Kansas City Royals 3
Cincinnati Reds 1, Los Angeles Dodgers 8
Boston Red Sox 1, Milwaukee Brewers 5
Cleveland Indians 5, Minnesota Twins 2
St. Louis Cardinals 2, Montreal Expos 3
Pittsburgh Pirates 1, New York Mets 0
Chicago Cubs 3, Philadelphia Phillies 1
Houston Astros 5, San Diego Padres 6
Atlanta Braves 4, San Francisco Giants 1
California Angels 5, Texas Rangers 10
New York Yankees 4, Toronto Blue Jays 1
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1337.14 (+1.68)
Born:
Chris Pérez, MLB pitcher (All-Star 2011, 2012; St. Louis Cardinals, Cleveland Indians, Los Angeles Dodgers), in Bradenton, Florida.
Chad Nkang, NFL linebacker (Jacksonville Jaguars), in Hyattsville, Maryland.
Iiro Tarkki, Finnish NHL goaltender (Anaheim Ducks), in Rauma, Finland.
Léa Seydoux, French actress (“Blue Is the Warmest Colour”, “Spectre”), in Paris, France.
History Diaries 