A Senate delegation led by Robert C. Byrd, the minority leader, will meet next month in Moscow with the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and will deliver a letter from President Reagan, Mr. Byrd announced today. Mr. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, said he and seven other Senators would visit Mr. Gorbachev on September 2 or 3. He said he would meet with Mr. Reagan next week about the trip. Referring to the planned meeting between Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev in Geneva in November, Mr. Byrd said, “I will be saying anything I can say to promote the President’s trip and to help to make it successful.” The other Senators are Strom Thurmond, Republican of South Carolina; Claiborne Pell, Democrat of Rhode Island; Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia; Dennis DeConcini, Democrat of Arizona; Paul S. Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland; John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, and George J. Mitchell, Democrat of Maine.
A federal judge today dismissed lawsuits against the Soviet Union over the downing of a Korean Air Lines jetliner in 1983. He ruled that United States courts had no jurisdiction to consider the lawsuits, which asked for millions of dollars in damages. The Judge, Aubrey E. Robinson Jr., said he had no doubt that the Soviet armed forces had shot down the airliner, killing 269 passengers and crew members. But he said he was obliged to dismiss the lawsuits, filed by relatives of the victims, because the Soviet Union had sovereign immunity. “A general principle of international law is that a sovereign may not be sued in a foreign court unless it voluntarily submits to jurisdiction,” Judge Robinson ruled in Federal District Court. The Soviet Union had refused to take part in the proceedings and had sent a diplomatic note asserting that foreign courts had no jurisdiction.
President Reagan attends a National Security Policy Group meeting to discuss the security of nuclear weapons in the U.S. and in Europe.
Britain, West Germany and Italy announced today that they would push ahead with a $15 billion program to develop an advanced new jet fighter for the 21st century. But France and Spain, which also took part in preliminary talks on this “Eurofighter” project, did not join today’s agreement, although they have promised to give a final answer within the next few weeks. The new fighter is expected to come into service with the British, West German and Italian air forces around 1995, replacing aging United States-built McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms, Lockheed F-104 Starfighters and other older planes. It will incorporate advanced new technologies, making it exceptionally agile in flight. Many experts believe its successful construction could close a large segment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization fighter market to American manufacturers for a generation.
Israeli warplanes destroyed the Lebanon headquarters of a pro-Syrian militia group that has taken responsibility for several suicide bombings of Israeli targets. The group, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, said five of its leaders got out of the building before the air raid, which killed two militiamen and wounded four. It was the second Israeli air strike at a guerrilla base in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa region of eastern Lebanon this week. The other attack, on Monday, was against a radical Palestinian group.
Kim Dae Jung, the South Korean opposition leader, was freed early today from house arrest that had been imposed on the eve of a national convention of his New Korea Democratic Party. A spokesman for Mr. Kim said there was no formal notification from authorities, but a contingent of police guards placed around his residence was withdrawn shortly after midnight.
A Chinese Government spokesman says foreign news reports about secret arms deals between China and Israel are “entirely groundless.” An official statement read at the weekly Foreign Ministry news briefing on Wednesday said the allegations had been circulated by people seeking to undermine China’s relations with Arab nations. Reports of the arms deals have appeared in several Western publications in the last year.
Philippine opposition leaders expressed optimism at the prospect of an electoral battle with President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Mr. Marcos announced Thursday that he was seriously considering calling a presidential election this year. The next election is not due until 1987. “The opposition is ready for elections, and so are our people, who have already rejected his repugnant regime,” said Salvador H. Laurel, president of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization, the largest opposition party. The Government announcement that a presidential election might be called within months came after a meeting Thursday night between Mr. Marcos and the leaders of his ruling party, the New Society Movement. After the caucus, the presidential palace issued an unusual statement saying that Mr. Marcos and his followers “seriously discussed” a proposal to hold elections for president and vice president this year. The next scheduled presidential election is 1987, when Mr. Marcos’s six-year term expires.
Nicaragua said today that 41 rebels, 2 children and 12 Sandinista policemen and soldiers died in fighting after a dawn attack by United States-backed guerrillas on the northern town of La Trinidad on Thursday. The Defense Ministry said about 150 rebels attacked the police station and held the town, 85 miles north of Managua, for four hours before withdrawing. The attack was the closest to the capital by the rebels in their three-year-old war against the Sandinista Government.
There are lines for gasoline, beggars are common, and the national currency is sliding so fast that importers increase prices almost daily. By any measure, Guatemala’s ultra-free-enterprise economy, the most powerful in Central America, has fallen into the worst economic depression it has suffered in 50 years. The crisis appears to be the main reason that the army has decided to permit presidential elections in November, ending 30 years of almost unbroken military rule. But the crippled economy is likely to provide an immediate and painful political test for whoever takes office.
The Madagascar Government said today that soldiers backed by armored vehicles had attacked the headquarters of an underground sect based on the martial art of kung fu, killing the sect’s leader and 19 of his followers. An official announcement read over state television said that 31 people were wounded in the attack by government militiamen on Thursday and that 208 members of the religious sect were arrested.
South Africa agreed today to a visit by three West European Foreign Ministers, but it warned them not to interfere in the country’s affairs. Australia, meanwhile, announced it was recalling its Ambassador for consultations as a “gesture of protest.” The announcement by the Foreign Ministry in Pretoria about the visit of the three Foreign Ministers — from Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands — coincided with continued violence in black townships, which seems to have spilled outside the 36 magisterial districts where an emergency decree took effect 12 days ago. The police said 1,381 people had been detained under the emergency decree and 48 of those had been released.
Differing South African loyalties face blacks in administrative jobs. What divides them is their interpretation of the youthful revolt that increasingly confronts them with the question: Are you for the system, or against it? A black policemen and a black teacher are among the blacks trying to respond to that question.
Federal deficits will not shrink by the $276.2 billion over the next three years that had been officially forecast in the 1986 budget approved by Congress on Thursday, Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders said. William H. Gray 3rd, chairman of the House Budget Committee, who helped bring about the budget compromise, said the savings would be closer to $200 billion.
White House officials turned away questions today about the minor surgery in which a piece of skin was removed from President Reagan’s nose. Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, repeatedly refused to go beyond a 55-word statement issued Thursday night. It said that “a small area of irritated skin on the right side of the President’s nose was removed” and that “no further treatment is necessary.”
President Reagan is informed later today that the skin removed from his nose a few days ago was a carcinoma.
137 people are killed when a Delta Air Lines jumbo jet crashes while attempting to land at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Delta Air Lines Flight 191 was a regularly scheduled Delta Air Lines domestic flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Los Angeles, California, with an intermediate stop at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). On August 2, 1985, the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar operating Flight 191 encountered a microburst while on approach to land at DFW. The aircraft impacted ground just over one mile (1.6 km) short of the runway, struck a car near the airport, collided with two water tanks and disintegrated. Out of the 163 occupants on board, 136 people died and 25 others were injured in the accident. One person on the ground also died. Among the deaths was Don Estridge, known to the world as the father of the IBM PC; he died aboard the flight along with his wife.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the crash resulted from the flight crew’s decision to fly through a thunderstorm, the lack of procedures or training to avoid or escape microbursts and the lack of hazard information on wind shear. Forecasts of microbursts improved in the following years, with the 1994 crash of USAir Flight 1016 being the only subsequent microburst-induced crash of a commercial, fixed-wing aircraft in the United States as of 2025.
At least 12 people were dead and seven missing in Cheyenne, Wyoming today with another 70 injured after a furious thunderstorm dropped six inches of rain in less than four hours. Rescuers searched a flooded creek for bodies and snow plows cleared a main street of hail that was also dropped by the storm Thursday night. The victims included a sheriff’s deputy and a young girl he was trying to rescue from a stranded automobile. Rescue teams searched around Dry Creek, pulling victims from automobiles deposited there by flood water and trying to find owners of the empty vehicles in the creek bed. Damage estimates totaled more than $65 million, and city sanitation would spend weeks helping to clean up the debris.
The astronauts in the space shuttle Challenger finally repaired one of their most important experiments today, paving the way for their best day in space. “Hey, it was successful,” said Dr. Loren W. Acton, a solar physicist, as a new computer program allowed the balky $60 million Instrument Pointing System to lock steadily on target. “We had a good pass that time,” Dr. Acton said after the solar telescopes on the pointing system gathered a wealth of data. “It was the first time we got a solar pass in its entirety.”
Federal investigators, having foiled what they said was a plot to smuggle missiles from the United States to Iran, said today that they were seeking to determine whether some of the people arrested in the last two days previously shipped arms to Iran. In addition, unrelated cases involving the purported smuggling of American military equipment to Iran are said to be under investigation. Jeffrey Modisett, an assistant United States attorney in Los Angeles, said charges in one case were expected later this month in that city. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported Thursday that it had arrested six people in what the Government said was a plot to smuggle more than $75 million in advanced missiles and weapons to Iran.
Clean-up of toxic waste sites is being slowed or halted because Congress has not yet renewed the program, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency told chairmen of key Congressional committees. Lee M. Thomas, administrator of the E.P.A., said he was being forced to slow or halt the work and that he was “gravely concerned” about the clean-up’s future.
The overall jobless rate was unchanged at 7.2 percent in July for the sixth consecutive month, a record, the Labor Department reported. The civilian unemployment rate, which excludes military people covered by the overall rate, was 7.3 percent, also unchanged since January.
The teamsters’ leader was praised by a senior Reagan Administration aide as sharing the President’s faith in the American people. The comment Thursday night at a teamsters’ conference in Dearborn, Michigan, was the first by a top Administration official since the Government decided not to press embezzlement charges against Jackie L. Presser.
Payments to asbestos victims were offered from a $2.5 billion fund by the Manville Corporation in the largest health-related settlement proposal ever made. The plan calls for shareholders to surrender half the value of their stock and for the company to give up much of its projected earnings for the next 25 years. To take effect, the offer must be approved by stockholders, unsecured creditors, co-defendants, current health claimants and future claimants, as well as a bankruptcy court. Lawyers in the case said the prospects for approval within a year were good. Manville made a bankruptcy move in 1982.
Five people die in a train crash in Westminster, Colorado. Two Burlington Northern freight trains collided head-on today, killing five crew members and triggering an explosion and fire that sent flames 100 feet into the air and enveloped the area in thick, black smoke. Several brush fires broke out near the accident scene, in a sparsely populated area northwest of Denver. The accident, which occurred about 7:30 PM below the Boulder Turnpike, derailed at least a dozen freight cars and caused one lane of the overpass to collapse. The four-lane highway, U.S. 36 between Denver and Boulder, was closed. The collision was the third fatal accident involving Burlington Northern trains in Colorado and Wyoming in less than 16 months.
A gasoline leak from a ruptured pipeline in Indianapolis erupted today into a 200-foot fireball that killed three people working to clean up the spill. Flames burned a two-block area of brush along Fishback Creek on the city’s northwest side about 1 AM, trapping three pipeline employees. Three other people were injured. Investigators said the fire had been started by a water pump being used to siphon gasoline from the creek into tanker trucks. Thousands of gallons of gasoline spilled into the creek Thursday from a hole in a 10-inch pipeline owned by the Marathon Oil Company that delivered fuel to the Rock Island Refinery in Indianapolis from a pumping station near Robinson, Illinois.
Seven women and five men have been seated on the jury to hear the espionage trial of Richard W. Miller, the first agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to be charged with spying. The selection of the jury and six alternates Thursday cleared the way for opening statements in the case, scheduled for Tuesday in Federal District Court. Mr. Miller, 48 years old, is charged with conspiring with two Soviet emigres to pass classified documents to the Soviet Union in exchange for $65,000 in cash and gold. Mr. Miller says he never spied for the Soviet Union but was trying to infiltrate its intelligence agency.
Montgomery Wards’ catalogue, turned out steadily since 1872, will no longer be published. The company said next December’s issue will be the last and blamed the catalogue’s demise on persistent losses.
Major League Baseball:
Negotiators for baseball’s club owners and players will apparently not settle their differences on the basis of Commissioner Peter Ueberroth’s suggested solutions, but they will begin talking again today in an effort to keep the players from walking out after Monday’s games.
Bob Horner and Terry Harper drew consecutive two-out bases-loaded walks and Ken Oberkfell singled home two runs in a five-run eighth inning for Atlanta as the Braves routed the Giants, 12–7. The Giants had rallied from a 4–0 hole to take a 7–4 lead heading into the eighth..
High or low, streaking or slumping, winning or losing, the Mets always seem to meet their Waterloo in 71-year-old Wrigley Field. And they did it again today when they arrived with a three-game winning streak and promptly lost to the Chicago Cubs, 2-1. Gary Matthews’ fifth-inning homer is the difference. Dennis Eckersley and Warren Brusstar held the Mets to six hits. The Mets lost eight of nine games last year in Wrigley Field, and they already have lost three of four here this year. So, they now have dropped 11 of their last 13 games in the angled old park on the North Side. Some urgency has been creeping into games because the players have threatened to go on strike next Tuesday if no labor agreement with the club owners is reached, and nobody knows how long the season will last. Today’s loss dropped the Mets two-and-a-half games behind St. Louis in the National League East.
The Dodgers and Reds split; the Dodgers won the opener of their doubleheader, 5–3, and the Reds came back to take the nightcap, 5–2, as Buddy Bell’s two-run double and Nick Esasky’s two-run homer sparked Cincinnati’s five-run third inning. The Reds knocked out the Dodger starter Rick Honeycutt (6-10) with the third-inning rally. Dave Concepcion walked, Dave Parker singled and Bell drove then both home with his double. Tony Perez singled Bell home, chasing Honeycutt, and Esasky hit his 10th homer and second in as many nights for a 5-0 lead. In the opener, Ken Landreaux hit a bases-empty homer and Pedro Guerrero added a three-run shot to help Orel Hershiser (12-3) earn his fourth straight victory. Guerrero also hit a homer in the second game, giving him 25 for the season. He has a 12-game hitting streak and 20 home runs in his last 45 games.
The Expos edged the Pirates, 3–2. Tim Wallach doubled home two runs, Joe Hesketh won his fourth straight game and Jeff Reardon notched his major league-leading 26th save as Montreal snapped a three-game losing streak. Hesketh (9-4) allowed two hits and walked five in six and one-third innings before giving way to Reardon, who retired all eight batters he faced.
Ozzie Smith triggered a three-run seventh inning with a run-scoring single, sparking St. Louis over Philadelphia, 3–2. John Tudor (13-8) struck out nine in notching his 12th triumph in his last 13 decisions. It was his eighth complete game. With two out and Philadelphia leading 1-0 in the seventh, Terry Pendleton reached on a fielder’s choice and Andy Van Slyke singled him to second. Smith singled home Pendleton. Glenn Wilson, the right fielder, tried to cut down Van Slyke at third base, but overthrew Rick Schu, allowing Van Slyke to score and Smith to take third. Smith scored when Luis Aguayo, the shortstop, bumped into Juan Samuel, who was trying to catch Tudor’s popup. That made the score 3-1.
Joe Niekro (9-8), the winning pitcher, drove in three runs with a pair of singles and Bill Doran belted a three-run homer for Houston as the Astros downed the Padres, 12–9.
Ozzie Guillen scores from second base on an infield hit in the 11th to give the White Sox a 6–5 victory over the Yankees. Salazar’s slow roller down the first base line is fielded by pitcher Mike Bordi, and with no play at first base, Guillen keeps running. In the 7th the Yankees have 2 runners thrown out at home on the same play (8–6–2–2) when Carlton Fisk tags out Rickey Henderson and Dale Berra. The evening was nothing more than a series of disasters for the Yankees. The defeat was the Yankees’ 9th in their last 12 games, knocking them nine and a half games out of first place in the American League East -their greatest deficit since opening day. The bizarre night was also marked by a closed-door team meeting with George Steinbrenner before the game and the dismissal of Mark Connor, the pitching coach, who was replaced by Bill Monbouquette. Manager Billy Martin said the move was not his idea.
Frank Tanana of the Tigers allows one hit — a home run by Ben Oglivie in the 5th — and faces just 28 batters in beating the Brewers, 4–1. Tanana (6–10) fanned 8, and allowed one walk, to Ted Simmons in the Brewers’ second, but he was quickly erased in a double play.. Chet Lemon keyed a three-run fifth inning with his fifth homer.
The Orioles topped the Indians, 8–6. Eddie Murray broke a 6-6 tie with a run-scoring single in the seventh inning and Larry Sheets and Mike Young each hit home runs for Baltimore. Sammy Stewart (4-4) pitched five innings in relief of Scott McGregor, yielding one run on one hit to gain the victory. The Orioles collected 16 hits, including three by Cal Ripken Jr.
At Exhibition Stadium, George Bell’s 4th inning grand slam gives the Blue Jays the lead as they beat the Rangers, 5–3. It is Bell’s second slam of the year. Mulliniks added a bases-empty homer. It was the Rangers’ fourth straight loss.
Kirk McCaskill limited Minnesota to two hits over 8 ⅔ innings, and Brian Downing delivered a two-run homer in the sixth inning to lead California to a 3–1 win over the Twins. With only their second triumph in eight games, the first-place Angels held their two-game lead over Kansas City in the American League West. Rod Carew collected two singles, leaving him two hits short of becoming the 16th player in major league history to reach the 3,000-hit plateau.
Lonnie Smith, a hot hitter on a hot team, singled home Pat Sheridan from third base with one out in the 10th at Kansas City to give the Royals their ninth win in the last 10 games, beating the Red Sox, 4–3. Smith, who has hit safely in seven games in a row, made a winner out of Dan Quisenberry. In the last nine victories, Quisenberry has seven saves and a victory. The Red Sox built a 3–0 lead, but Bruce Hurst faltered in the ninth. Hal McRae sent the game into extra innings with a two-run double off reliever Mark Clear. Smith’s double with one out in the ninth had driven Hurst from the mound. Smith, who was batting .190 after coming over from the St. Louis Cardinals early in the season, has batted .320 for the last month.
The Oakland A’s downed Seattle, 3–1, as Mike Davis hit his 20th home run, and three A’s pitchers combined on a four-hitter at Oakland. Rick Langford pitched three scoreless innings in relief of Tommy John. John had to leave after three innings when he injured his finger in a rundown play. He had to leave to have the finger X-rayed. Steve Ontiveros pitched the last three innings to earn his third save. John gave up the only run in the third on two singles. Langford and Ontiveros each gave up a hit. Mike Heath’s two-out single tied the score for the A’s in the third, and Donnie Hill’s sacrifice fly followed Steve Kiefer’s triple in the fourth.
The last-place Pirates unload 3 of their veteran players, trading pitchers John Candelaria and Al Holland and outfielder George Hendrick to the Angels for outfielder Mike Brown and pitchers Pat Clements and Bob Kipper.
San Francisco Giants 7, Atlanta Braves 12
Minnesota Twins 1, California Angels 3
New York Mets 1, Chicago Cubs 2
Los Angeles Dodgers 5, Cincinnati Reds 3
Los Angeles Dodgers 2, Cincinnati Reds 5
Baltimore Orioles 8, Cleveland Indians 6
Milwaukee Brewers 1, Detroit Tigers 4
San Diego Padres 9, Houston Astros 12
Boston Red Sox 3, Kansas City Royals 4
Chicago White Sox 6, New York Yankees 5
Seattle Mariners 1, Oakland Athletics 3
Montreal Expos 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 2
Philadelphia Phillies 2, St. Louis Cardinals 3
Texas Rangers 3, Toronto Blue Jays 5
With interest rate pressures growing, Wall Street gave in to profit taking yesterday that ended the stock market’s modest three-day rally.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1353.05 (-2.57)
Born:
Simon Niepmann, is a Swiss rower (gold medal, men’s lightweight four, 2016), in Lörrach, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany.
Died:
Don Estridge, 48, American computer engineer and father of the IBM PC, in the crash of Delta Air Lines Flight 191 at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
Frank Faylen, 79, American actor (“It’s a Wonderful Life”, “Funny Girl”), of pneumonia
History Diaries 