A railway stationmaster admitted that he mistakenly ordered a passenger train onto a track occupied by another, causing a fiery head-on collision near Flaujac in south-central France on Saturday that killed at least 34 and injured about 100 others, officials said. “I am done for — this is a catastrophe!” witnesses in the train station quoted stationmaster Yves Saliens, 37, as shouting when he allegedly realized his error. Railway officials said Saliens admitted that he confused train schedules and thought that a southbound express train from Paris with vacationers aboard already had passed the town of Assier on a single track when he ordered a northbound train onto the same track. Saliens had only been assigned to the Assier station yeasterday.
Four Soviet soldiers who got lost on maneuvers in Czechoslovakia traded their tank to a tavern owner for two cases of vodka and were found sleeping it off in a forest two days later, a West German newspaper reported. Czech Communist authorities later learned that the tavern owner dismantled the tank and sold the pieces to a metal-recycling center, the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported in its weekend issue.
Rabbi Meir Kahane’s popularity is soaring in Israel. The rabbi, founder of the Jewish Defense League in New York, emigrated to Israel 14 years ago, and was elected to the Israeli Parliament a year ago. He advocates ousting all Arabs from Israel so that it may become a purely Jewish nation. Discussing the enormous rise in his popularity, the rabbi says, “I have touched a simple and honest nerve on the part of the people.”
U.S. and Egyptian military forces launched their biggest-ever joint exercise-a week of air, sea and land operations in Egypt’s western desert that is to include a Marine landing along the Mediterranean coast. About 9,000 U.S. military personnel joined Egyptian forces in the maneuvers, code-named BRIGHT STAR 85, which will include naval games off the Egyptian coast and live ammunition training in the desert northwest of Cairo. A U.S. source in Cairo said General Robert Kingston, commander of the Central Command, formerly called the Rapid Deployment Force, is in Egypt to supervise the war games.
Iraq said its navy launched the second attack in as many days on Iran’s Now Ruz oil field in the Persian Gulf and said its soldiers killed nearly 5,000 Iranian troops in fighting last month. The Now Ruz rigs are in the central part of the northern gulf, 40 miles off the Iranian coast. There was no immediate comment from Iran on the reports. An official Iraqi spokesman also denied Iranian reports that only two Iranians were killed in marshland fighting along the southern border last month and said Iraqi forces killed 4,965 soldiers between July 14 and July 29.
Algeria announced that it will not attend a special Arab League summit due to open Wednesday in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. A Foreign Ministry statement said the summit convened by King Hassan II of Morocco would be divisive when the Arab world needs unity. Algeria is the fifth Arab nation to boycott the summit after Syria, South Yemen, Libya and Lebanon. Syria, it appears, is concerned that Hassan is trying to put an Arab League seal on the accord between the Palestine Liberation Organization and King Hussein of Jordan on a joint approach to Middle East peace talks.
A Peking newspaper said today that Chinese artillery killed more than 200 Vietnamese soldiers in a recent border clash in Yunnan Province. Peking Daily made the claim in a story about a local war hero identified as Xu Xiaodan, a scout for artillery units near Laoshan, a frequently reported flashpoint in the six-year-old undeclared China-Vietnam border war. It did not specify when the fighting occurred or whether the Chinese suffered casualties, but said the army recently awarded the scout the title of “hero artillery scout” for directing the shelling of 78 Vietnamese positions. The report came two days after Vietnam said its forces killed 313 Chinese soldiers last month in repulsing “land-grabbing attacks” in Hà Tuyên Province, which borders Yunnan.
Violent crime has dropped sharply in China as the result of a crackdown, but offenses related to loosened economic restraints are on the rise, Security Minister Liu Fuzhi said in an interview in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily. Among capital crimes, robberies last year fell by 34%, rapes by 20% and homicides by 10% from 1983. “But there are still problems in urban areas,” Liu added. Most of these are money-related offenses, resulting from rapid economic development and movements in population, he said.
Robert L. Vesco is living in Havana and is receiving medical treatment there, President Fidel Castro acknowledged at a news conference. But in an angry response at a news conference this afternoon he denied the financier was being held under house arrest in Havana. Mr. Castro charged that reports that Mr. Vesco was in Cuban custody were an attempt by United States intelligence services to divert attention from a five-day conference on the Latin American debt crisis that ended here early this morning. In response to another question, Mr. Castro said he had to be “discreet” about announcing travel outside his country because “the C.I.A. is hunting me everywhere.” He said Mr. Vesco came to Cuba to ask for medical care.
A 77-year-old conservative populist seemed assured today of the presidency of Bolivia as small political parties lined up behind his candidacy. The conservative, Victor Paz Estenssoro, who heads the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement, led the 1952 revolution that nationalized the country’s tin mines. He came in second in the popular vote last month. But he received enough backing overnight to win the congressional vote for president easily, according to his opponent’s party.
Uganda’s political factions were urged to unify so that elections can be held in a year. The call came from the leader of the military coup that toppled the civilian Government of President Milton Obote last month. Insisting that the new regime was in complete control, the military leader, Brigadier Bazilio Olar Okello, said in an interview that if “we can agree on unity, we shall manage security in Uganda. The leaders of the country’s new military council have said that general elections, which were originally to have taken place before the end of the year under Mr. Obote’s administration, would be held in 12 months’ time.
Uganda will reopen Entebbe Airport today, the government radio reported. The international airfield, made famous in a 1976 Israeli hostage rescue, has been closed since a military coup July 20 that toppled President Milton Obote. In another matter, Prime Minister Paulo Muwanga was quoted in a broadcast as saying that he has met with representatives of former Defense Minister Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda National Resistance Army in an attempt to form a broadbased government. However, a rebel spokesman in Kenya denied that such a meeting had occurred.
South Africa’s black mine union called for a strike over pay this month and, in a separate warning, threatened to boycott white businesses unless the Government rescinded its emergency decree within 72 hours. The union, which claims 230,000 members at gold, diamond and coal mines, also said it would call an immediate national mine strike if President P. W. Botha carried out threats to repatriate foreign black workers in reprisal for international sanctions against South Africa. Sanctions have been imposed or threatened by several nations in response to the emergency decree.
Americans are becoming more fearful that AIDS will spread to the general population, and some are so worried that they are refusing elective surgery that would require blood transfusions, a Gallup Poll showed. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome, which destroys the body’s ability to fight infections, afflicts mostly homosexual men, hemophiliacs, and intravenous drug users. It can apparently be spread by sexual contact, contaminated needles and blood transfusions but not by casual contact. Some people are taking precautions to avoid getting AIDS, according to the poll, published by Newsweek. Thirteen percent of those surveyed said they are avoiding persons they know or suspect to be homosexuals; 28% said they are avoiding places homosexuals are known to frequent, and 21% said they are refusing elective surgery requiring blood transfusions.
A wind-shear alarm was sounded by sensors at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport minutes after a Delta Air Line jetliner crashed and burned at the airport Friday evening, Federal safety officials said. The report supports the theory trhat the plane was knocked down by wind shear, a sudden change in the speed or direction of airflow.
Federal investigators disclosed tonight that an air traffic controller ordered the Delta Air Lines jumbo jet that crashed here Friday night to abort its landing, but this order apparently came only after the plane had struck the ground once and was again airborne. The official leading the investigation, G. H. Patrick Bursley, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, also said that, minutes before, the pilot had been ordered by the ground controller to slow down, to 150 knots, because he was overtaking a Lear jet ahead of him that was having difficulty landing. This order may have been fatal, the investigator suggested, possibly forcing the pilot to throttle down when he needed more speed to pull out if sudden changes in the speed or direction of airflow, called wind shear. occurred.
President Reagan was accused of failing to show leadership in the recent budget fight as the nation’s governors met in Boise, Idaho. Kansas Governor John Carlin, chairman of the National Governors Association, said Reagan’s media campaign to push his tax proposal had detracted “from Congress’ ability to deal with the deficit.” The governors also expressed concern about the rising level of foreign imports, particularly from Japan.
A plunge into international trade has been taken by the states in an attempt to improve their economies, according to a report at the annual convention of the National Governors’ Association in Boise, Idaho. Governors say their involvement in a field that has been dominated by the Government results from the inadequacy of programs set up by Congress.
President Reagan returns to the White House from the weekend at Camp David.
In a study important to the “Star Wars” defense program, the space shuttle Challenger’s astronauts fired its rocket engines while scientists using telescopes in Australia attempted to analyze the exhaust’s effect on charged gas particles, called plasma, that make up the ionosphere. Scientists “saw the burn” as Challenger passed over the Reber Observatory in Hobart, Tasmania, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman said. A shorter rocket firing was done over observatories in Massachusetts. The Strategic Defense Initiative space-based missile defense system will use lasers or particle beams in the ionospheric plasma to track and destroy attacking missiles.
Rival gangs armed with automatic weapons exchanged fire in a crowded park in Oakland, New Jersey, killing at least two persons and injuring 20 others, five critically. The shooting broke out at the 26-acre Frank R. Gallo Sports Complex in the New York City suburb, and part of a summer crowd estimated at 1,500 persons was caught in the cross fire, police said. Three persons were arrested. The injured were taken to five hospitals with gunshot wounds and other injuries, police said.
Teamsters President Jackie Presser said “there could be no reason for my life to be in jeopardy” in the wake of reports that he served as an FBI informant about other union bosses and organized crime figures. “I haven’t done anything, and when you don’t do anything, there is no reason to be afraid,” Presser told the Detroit News in a copyrighted interview, his first since the Justice Department dropped an investigation of his alleged involvement in a payroll-padding scandal involving the Cleveland local.
Arthur J. Walker, 50, will be the first of four men arrested in the Walker family-and-friend Navy spy case to go on trial when he faces U.S. District Judge J. Calvitt Clarke today in Norfolk, Va. Samuel Meekins, Walker’s lead defense attorney, said the decision for the judge to hear the case rather than having a jury trial was made in a meeting of attorneys for Walker, prosecutors and Clarke. It would have taken two to three days to select a 12-member panel, Meekins said. Walker’s brother, John A. Walker Jr., 47, and John’s son, Michael Lance Walker, 22, are to stand trial in the case in Baltimore on October 28. A fourth defendant, Jerry A. Whitworth, 45, is to go on trial in San Francisco on August 26.
William J. Schroeder went home to Jasper, Indiana, to visit his family for the first time in the eight months since he became the world’s second recipient of an artificial heart. He was greeted by thousands of cheering people on his arrival from Louisville, Kentucky, where the heart transplant took place. The effects of two strokes Mr. Schroeder has suffered since the operation appeared to leave him unable to display much emotion on his return, but Dr. William C. DeVries said his longest-living artificial heart patient was buoyed by the 90-mile trip from Louisville. “It was perfect,” Dr. DeVries said. “This will raise his spirits tremendously.”
A truck hauling bombs from an Army munitions plant was in collision with a car in Oklahoma early today, setting off explosions that injured at least 47 people, forced up to 6,000 from their homes and left a crater 35 feet across and 27 feet deep in Interstate 40, officials said. The car, entering Interstate 40 from U.S. 69, collided with the truck shortly after 4 A.M., causing it to jackknife and starting a fire, Fire Chief Don Ray of Checotah said. When firefighters arrived, he said, the driver of the truck told them he was carrying bombs. They parked their equipment under an overpass nearby.
A strong earthquake shook a large area of California early today, jostling people out of their beds but causing no serious damage or injuries. The earthquake shook the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo, 60 miles southwest of the epicenter in Coalinga, but had no effect on plant operations, John Angius, a spokesman for Pacific Gas & Electric, said. The quake, which was powerful enough to have caused significant damage, was felt as far away as Los Angeles County, 150 miles to the south.
An exact replica of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima 40 years ago has been made at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to further research on the health effects of radiation. The research is part of an international effort to reevaluate the Hiroshima bomb and its impact on the survivors of the blast, though the exact strength and radiation of that weapon remain a deep scientific mystery.
American hang glider Larry Tudor set a world record for gain of height, climbing 4,343 meters in one flight.
Harry Krieger and Tom Eyen’s musical “Dreamgirls” closes at the Imperial Theater, NYC, after 1522 performances, winning 6 Tony Awards, 5 Drama Desk Awards, and 2 Grammy Awards.
Major League Baseball:
In a day of milestones, Tom Seaver becomes the 17th pitcher to win 300 games and Rod Carew becomes the 16th player ever to collect 3,000 career hits. Seaver pitches the White Sox to a 4–1 six-hit victory over the Yankees on Phil Rizzuto Day at Yankee Stadium as 54,032 New Yorkers cheer him on, while Carew bloops a single to left off Frank Viola in the 3rd inning of the Angels 6–5 win over the Twins.
The New York Yankees retire Baseball Hall of Fame shortstop Phil Rizzuto’s #10.
The Braves’ Terry Harper lead off the bottom of the 10th inning with his 14th home run of the season to defeat the Giants, 5–4. Harper connected against Mike Jeffcoat (0–1), sending a drive over the fence in left. Gene Garber (3–3), the fourth Braves pitcher, picked up the victory. The Braves tied the game with two out in the ninth on Rafael Ramirez’s third run-scoring hit of the game, a double that scored Milt Thompson from first. Pascual Perez, the Braves’ starter, was taken off the restricted list before the game. He had not pitched since July 21, when he left the club after being hit hard by the Mets. He gave up two runs and six hits over five and one-third innings. Dale Murphy scored on Bob Horner’s sacrifice fly in the fifth to give Atlanta a 3–1 lead. San Francisco made it 3–2 in the sixth on an RBI single by Trillo. The pinch-hitter Joel Youngblood hit a two-run homer in the eighth off Bruce Sutter, giving the Giants a 4–3 lead.
With a remarkable sense of timing and a slightly sprained ankle, Dwight Gooden pitched the Mets to a 4–1 victory over the Chicago Cubs today, won his 11th straight game and broke the club record set 16 years ago by Tom Seaver. The 20-year-old pitching wizard from Tampa, Florida, stopped the Cubs on a five-hitter with three walks and six strikeouts, and won his 17th game of the season against only three defeats. He also pitched the Mets to within half a game of the first-place St. Louis Cardinals in the tightening race in the National League East. Since he was outpitched by Fernando Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 25, Gooden has started 14 games, won 11 and gone to no decision three times. No pitcher in the 23-year history of the Mets has ever won more games in a row. And by winning 11 straight, he surpassed Seaver’s streak of 10 victories in 11 starts between August 9 and September 27, 1969, when Seaver was a 24-year-old star pitching the Mets toward their first pennant. Gooden also triggers a 3-run Mets’ 3rd with a double.
The Phillies’ Kevin Gross pitched a four-hitter today as Philadelphia defeated St. Louis, 6–0, cutting the Cardinals’ lead over the Mets to one-half game in the National League East. Ozzie Virgil had a two-run double and Juan Samuel and Von Hayes contributed RBI doubles to highlight a six-run eighth inning. Gross (11–8) pitched his third complete game and first shutout of the season. The Phillies broke open a scoreless game by sending 11 men to the plate against Joaquin Andujar (17–6) in the eighth after a 25-minute rain delay. Andujar walked Luis Aguayo to start the inning, and Aguayo went to second on Gross’s sacrifice. Samuel doubled home Aguayo. Greg Gross singled to move Samuel to third, and he scored on Hayes’s double. Andujar intentionally walked Mike Schmidt to load the bases and the strategy seemed to have worked when Glenn Wilson grounded to the third baseman Terry Pendleton. However, Pendleton’s throw home pulled the catcher Darrell Porter off the plate, allowing Greg Gross to score.
The Reds edged the Dodgers, 5–4, Tony Perez hit a homer in the fourth inning and singled home Dave Parker with the winning run in the bottom of the eighth. Parker doubled to start the eighth after the Dodgers scored four times in the top of the inning. Parker took third on a sacrifice and scored on Perez’s single off Ken Howell (4–5). Homers by Parker and Perez helped Tom Browning take a 4–0 lead into the eighth. The Dodgers’ Mariano Duncan and R. J. Reynolds hit one-out singles in the eighth after Browning had retired 11 straight batters. Pedro Guerrero followed with his 27th homer, making it 4-3 and bringing on Ted Power. Mike Marshall reached second on the third baseman Buddy Bell’s fielding error and scored on Ken Landreaux’s pinch-hit double. Power (3–2) worked out of the inning and held the Dodgers scoreless in the ninth for the victory.
The Pirates downed the Expos, 4–3. Jim Morrison hit his first home run of the season, and Rick Rhoden ended a personal five-game losing streak. Morrison led off the second inning with a drive over the left-field wall off Bill Gullickson (10–8) that gave Pittsburgh a 3–0 lead. The Pirates scored twice in the first inning on Jason Thompson’s run-scoring groundout and Mike Brown’s RBI single. Tony Pena’s sacrifice fly provided the fourth run in the third inning. Bill Madlock scored on the play just before Jason Thompson was doubled off first base. Rhoden (6–12) won for the first time since June 20. He worked five innings, leaving the game after allowing single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings. Cecilio Guante, the third Pittsburgh pitcher, went one and one-third innings for his second save. Tim Wallach was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the third, Gullickson had an RBI single in the fourth and Hubie Brooks slammed his ninth home run of the season in the fifth, accounting for the Montreal runs.
Mike Scott and Dave Smith combined on a five-hitter, and Glenn Davis hit a home run as the Houston Astros completed a three-game sweep, topping the San Diego Padres, 2–1. Scott (11–5) allowed four hits over eight innings. Smith earned his 17th save. Dave Dravecky (8–7) took the loss.
The Angels downed the Twins, 6–5, and Rod Carew became the 16th player in major-league history to reach 3,000 career hits when he singled in the third inning today off Frank Viola. The 39-year-old Carew, who learned baseball on the streets and playgrounds of the Bronx near Yankee Stadium, and who is in his 19th major-league season, sliced a 1–1 pitch into short left field in front of Dave Meier. The game was held up for three minutes as a crowd of 41,630 at Anaheim Stadium roared. All of Carew’s California Angel teammates left the dugout and came out on the field to congratulate Carew, who had singled Saturday night for his 2,999th hit. The ball Carew hit today was tossed into the dugout for safekeeping, and Manager Gene Mauch took the first-base bag into the dugout and replaced it with another.
Tom Seaver gave up a run-scoring single to Ken Griffey in the third inning, then received four runs in the sixth and retired 12 of 13 batters during one stretch before struggling in the eighth and ninth. But he struck out Dave Winfield on a 3–2 changeup with two on and two out in the eighth, and got Baylor in the ninth after a four-pitch walk to Mike Pagliarulo. The Yankees bowed to the White Sox, 4–1, but the story was “Tom Terrific” and his 300th major league win.
In the first of 2 games at Detroit, Darrell Evans’ grand slam is the margin of victory as Detroit beats the Brewers, 7–4. Rick Waits (0–2) walked Alan Trammell and Kirk Gibson to lead off the inning before being replaced by Bob Gibson. Following a sacrifice and an intentional walk, Evans hit his grand slam, his 24th homer. Milwaukee rebounds in game 2, winning, 14–4, scoring all their runs in the first 4 innings. The Brewers reached Randy O’Neal (5–4) and Juan Berenguer for 12 runs in the second and third innings. Ted Simmons has 4 hits and 3 RBI and Ben Oglivie adds a 3-run home run.
Wayne Tolleson’s bases-loaded infield single in the seventh inning scored Toby Harrah with the tie-breaking run as Texas snapped a five-game losing streak with an 8–4 victory over the Blue Jays today. With the score tied at 3–3, Harrah drew a walk from Dave Stieb (10–7) to start the seventh and, one out later, moved to second on Geno Petralli’s single. With two outs, Oddibe McDowell was intentionally walked to load the bases. Tolleson then sent a slow roller down the first-base line that struck the bag and bounded high in the air for a hit.
Lee Lacy hit a bases-empty home run in the ninth to lift Baltimore to a 5–4 win at Cleveland. Lacy slugged his fifth home run over the left-center field fence off Indians’ reliever Rich Thompson (3–6). Dennis Martinez (8–7) turned in 3 ⅔ innings of one-hit relief. Baltimore made it 3–3 in the fourth when Eddie Murray singled and Gary Roenicke hit a home run. Cleveland regained the lead in the fifth when Butler walked, went to third on Julio Franco’s single and scored on the front end of a double steal. But the Orioles tied the game in the seventh when Floyd Rayford hit his sixth homer.
Steve Kiefer’s RBI single highlighted a two-run sixth-inning rally that gave the A’s a 5–3 triumph over the Mariners. Kiefer, playing in place of the injured Carney Lansford, lined a two-out single off Seattle’s Matt Young (7–12), scoring Dave Kingman with the go-ahead run. Kingman led off with a walk and advanced on Mike Davis’s one-out single. Kiefer’s hit brought on the reliever Roy Thomas, who walked Donnie Hill to load the bases and then walked Alfredo Griffin for another run. Don Sutton (10–6) pitched 6 ⅔ innings to pick up career victory No. 290. Jay Howell pitched the ninth for his 22nd save. Trailing by 3–0 in the third, the A’s rallied to tie the game when Mike Davis slammed his 21st home run of the year and Kingman sliced a two-run, two-out single. Jim Presley’s 24th homer, a three-run shot in the second inning, had given the Mariners the lead.
Bill Buckner’s two-run double in the 12th inning gave Boston a 6–5 victory in Kansas City. Dwight Evans opened the 12th off Mike LaCoss (1–1) with a double into the right-field corner. Wade Boggs, who had four hits for the day, then bunted for a single, with Evans taking third, and Buckner followed with a double to right center to score both runners and give the Red Sox a 5–3 lead. Buckner went to third on the throw to the plate and scored on Jim Rice’s opposite-field double to right. Bob Stanley (6–5) picked up the victory in relief with Mark Clear pitching out of a 12th inning jam to get his third save. The Royals scored twice in the 12th on an RBI double by George Brett and a run-scoring single by Frank White, his fourth hit.
San Francisco Giants 4, Atlanta Braves 5
Minnesota Twins 5, California Angels 6
New York Mets 4, Chicago Cubs 1
Los Angeles Dodgers 4, Cincinnati Reds 5
Baltimore Orioles 5, Cleveland Indians 4
Milwaukee Brewers 4, Detroit Tigers 7
Milwaukee Brewers 14, Detroit Tigers 4
San Diego Padres 1, Houston Astros 2
Boston Red Sox 6, Kansas City Royals 5
Chicago White Sox 4, New York Yankees 1
Seattle Mariners 3, Oakland Athletics 5
Montreal Expos 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 4
Philadelphia Phillies 6, St. Louis Cardinals 0
Texas Rangers 8, Toronto Blue Jays 4
Born:
Ha Seung-Jin, Korean NBA center (Portland Trailblazers), in Seoul, South Korea.
Crystal Bowersox, American singer, songwriter and actress (“American Idol”), in Elliston, Ohio.
History Diaries 