When President Reagan and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze meet on Friday, they will do so without benefit of the usual prior diplomatic stage-setting. Officials on both sides said the result might be little or no progress in nuclear arms control unless the unusual happens. Fearing that this is so, and trying to turn this prospect around, the Administration seems now to be putting out the word that Mr. Reagan would not respond negatively to new Soviet ideas. The two sides find themselves in this situation, according to officials on both sides, because something critically important did not happen when Secretary of State George P. Shultz talked with Mr. Shevardnadze Wednesday: The two men did not sit down privately, away from their colleagues, as their predecessors had almost invariably done just prior to a session with the President, and say, ”We are thinking about doing this if you do that.” The Soviet side chose not to show its cards without some idea of what it would get in return. The American side, having already put forward a general proposal in the Geneva talks, felt the next move was Moscow’s.
President Reagan is hoping that a ”concrete proposal” to limit nuclear arms will be offered by the Soviet Foreign Minister in their meeting Friday, the White House national security adviser, Robert C. McFarlane, said today. But Mr. McFarlane made it plain that the White House remained uncertain whether the Foreign Minister, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, would propose an arms reduction plan in the meeting. Asked if Mr. Reagan would be disappointed if a plan was not presented, a senior Administration official replied: ”Yes.” The Soviet Foreign Minister spent more than four hours with Secretary of State George P. Shultz in New York on Wednesday. Aides said no arms proposals were offered then, and the gap between the nations did not narrow.
A senior member of the K.G.B. has defected and is providing information to the West about Soviet espionage operations in Europe and the United States, Reagan Administration officials said today. Some officials said the defector, Vitaly Yurchenko, 50 years old, had also identified several employees of the Central Intelligence Agency as Soviet agents. It was not clear from the accounts whether those reportedly involved were contract employees or full-fledged C.I.A. officers. The defection of Mr. Yurchenko would be the latest in a series of episodes this summer that have rocked intelligence agencies in both the East and the West, including the defection of the K.G.B. station chief in London and the defection to East Germany of the chief West German spy-catcher. They said that Vitaly Yurchenko, 50 years old, had identified several employees of the C.I.A. as Soviet agents.
President Reagan attends a National Security Council meeting to discuss the upcoming visit of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union Eduard Shevardnadze.
Four members of the French intelligence agency and a suspended army officer were indicted today on charges of providing secret information to the press about the operation against the antinuclear protest ship, the Rainbow Warrior. The four agents of the French intelligence service were arrested earlier on suspicion of having enabled the French press to identify the attackers of the ship, which belonged to the Greenpeace environmental movement, as French intelligence agents. The four intelligence agents charged today with giving away information have been identified as a colonel, a captain, and two noncommissioned officers of the agency. The suspended army officer, the fifth man indicted today, is suspected by the Government of having served as a liaison between the intelligence agency and reporters. He is Paul Barril, a captain in a special presidential antiterrorist squad who was in the public eye here two years ago for leading a commando-style operation against suspected members of the Irish Republican Army in Paris. Mr. Barril, who was accused of fabricating evidence in the case, was suspended from the army for five years.
U.S. veterans of World War II met with former German soldiers drawn from the ranks of the Waffen SS division, which also included death-camp guards, in a reunion assailed by critics as an insult to concentration-camp victims. The 50 Americans, veterans of the U.S. 70th Infantry Division, met 24 of the Germans for drinks at a hotel in Bad Windsheim, West Germany. The two groups planned a rally and wreath-laying ceremony today.
Israeli planes attacked a Palestinian base in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, the military command announced. There was no immediate word on casualties in Israel’s third strike this year against the base, manned by the Abu Moussa faction, a Syrian-backed group that broke away from Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization in 1983. Meanwhile, rival Muslim gunmen shelled civilian areas of Tripoli, killing three people in Lebanon’s second largest city.
Israel asked tonight for the extradition of three Palestinians held in the murder of three Israelis in a marina in Larnaca, Cyprus, on Wednesday. Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir signed the application this afteroon and it was sent through the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem to the Israeli Ambassador in Nicosia. In his application, Mr. Zamir cited the European Convention on Extradition signed by Israel in 1967 and by Cyprus in 1971. A Justice Ministry source said Israeli law allows courts here to try people accused of crimes against Israelis outside the country. The wanted men were named as Ali Nafas, 22 years old, George Hanna, 24, and Mohammed Khald Abdullah, 27.
Gunmen kidnapped two British women today in West Beirut, witnesses said. Although no motive for the abduction was immediately apparent, it seemed possible that the gunmen could have mistaken the Britons for Americans. Three gunmen stopped Hazel Moose, 39 years old, and Amanda Magrath, 28, and forced them into a car in Makhoul Street, a few blocks from the West Beirut campus of the American University of Beirut, witnesses said. ”They waited outside the apartment block for them for some time,” said a witness, who declined to be identified. When the two women reached the corner, the witness said, ”the men stopped them, made them get into a car and drove off very quickly.”
Secretary of State George P. Shultz held an unpublicized dinner with King Hussein in New York this week to discuss the Reagan Administration’s problems with the imminent announcement of the sale of advanced American aircraft and other military equipment to Jordan, Government officials said today. They said that in the dinner, which was held Tuesday at the United Nations Plaza Hotel, Mr. Shultz sought to gain further assurances from King Hussein about his readiness to negotiate with Israel. They said such assurances would make it easier to defuse the Congressional opposition to the arms sale, which is expected to be heavy.
Tunisia drops diplomatic relations with Libya. Tunisia broke diplomatic relations with Libya, accusing Colonel Muammar Qaddafi’s regime of pursuing a “permanent policy of aggression and hostility.” The decision was announced in state-run media just one day after Tunisia charged that a Libyan diplomat smuggled into the country letter bombs that were addressed to Tunisian journalists. The announcement charged Libya with sponsoring subversive acts, violating Tunisian airspace and threatening force against Tunis.
Britain today concluded a multibillion-dollar agreement for the sale of 132 British advanced technology aircraft to Saudi Arabia. Defense Minister Michael Heseltine, who signed the agreement for Britain, said it was ”the largest export negotiation this country has ever concluded.”
Iraqi warplanes struck again today at Iran’s main Kharg Island oil terminal, and shipping sources said exports from the terminal had been halted. A military spokesman in Baghdad said the attack, the 13th Iraq has claimed since August 15 and the third in as many days, was ”aimed at keeping the fires caused by previous Iraqi attacks ablaze.” Shipping sources said a devastating Iraqi strike last week severely reduced Iran’s ability to ship oil. Raids since then, including an attack Tuesday, appear to have caused further damage, although there was no independent word of what happened in the attacks today and Wednesday.
Voters in the troubled state of Punjab rejected the Congress Party of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on Wednesday and chose a moderate Sikh party to form a new state Government, according to returns announced tonight. The results meant that the responsibility for ending three years of violence and turmoil in the northern Indian state would soon fall to a party headed by leaders who Mr. Gandhi released from prison only last March. Preliminary tallies showed the moderate Sikh party, the Akali Dal leading or winning in more than 75 legislative districts out of 115 at stake. The lopsided victory surprised politicians of all parties and came in spite of four days of campaigning by the Prime Minister just before the election.
The Manila trial of 25 soldiers and one civilian in the assassination of Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. ended as prosecutors waived their right to call rebuttal witnesses. Each side was given 20 days to submit written summations before the case goes to a three-judge panel, which must reach a unanimous decision. The judges have until January 16 to reach a verdict. Aquino was shot to death at Manila airport August 21, 1983, as he returned from the United States.
An earthquake centered in the Pacific Ocean 350 miles off New Zealand shook many parts of the two main islands today, but there were no immediate reports of damage, a Government scientist said. Warwick Smith, director of the seismological observatory in Wellington, said the quake registered 7 on the open-ended Richter scale.
The antinuclear protest vessel Rainbow Warrior was refloated today, more than two months after being sunk by French agents. Maritime experts said they doubted the ship could be made seaworthy except at prohibitive cost, and estimated that it would be worth $10,000 or more as scrap. The ship, listing slightly, was towed from a naval dry dock in Auckland to a berth across the harbor. Brown metal plating covered the holes made by the two bombs that sank her.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said today that he had told President Reagan that Canada was interested in negotiating a liberalized trade agreement between the two countries. ”Economics, geography, common sense and the national interest dictate that we try to secure and expand our trade with our closest and largest trading partner,” the Prime Minister told the House of Commons in a short statement. ”We seek to negotiate the broadest possible package of mutually beneficial reductions in tariff and non-tariff barriers between our two countries,” Mr. Mulroney said. Canada’s leaders have striven in recent years to find a way to guarantee access to the huge United States market. But protectionist sentiment in the United States has been sharply rising, reflected most recently in several speeches by President Reagan intended to blunt even tougher talk in Congress.
Canada’s Communications Minister Marcel Masse resigned, the second senior minister to quit Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s embattled Progressive Conservative government this week. Masse stunned the House of Commons when he announced he was stepping down because of a police investigation into his election spending last year. Claiming innocence, he said he was resigning to prevent the investigation from reflecting on the government’s integrity. Fisheries Minister John Fraser was forced to resign earlier after a scandal over his authorization of the sale of tainted tuna to supermarkets.
The United States, Panama and Japan formally agreed to conduct a five-year study, costing $20 million, of alternatives to the Panama Canal. Plans to be considered are enlargement of the existing 73year-old, 40-mile canal, construction of a parallel route or construction of pipelines and railroads to shuttle oil or cargo containers from one side of the isthmus to the other. Secretary of State George P. Shultz hailed the agreement, signed at the United Nations, as an example of U.S. support for economic growth in Central America.
Gunfire broke out in parts of Khartoum early this morning and riot policemen were deployed as tension mounted between northern and southern Sudanese. At least six people were reported killed and many were reported arrested. Details of the violence remain sketchy. According to both Western diplomatic and Sudanese accounts at least two separate shooting incidents involving soldiers and civilians took place this morning. Tanks were stationed in parts of the capital today, several roadblocks were erected and helmeted policemen carrying shields, clubs and automatic weapons patrolled the streets. The root cause of the troubles appears to be the longstanding grievances of southerners, who practice Christianity or traditional religions and identify with black Africa, against discrimination and domination by northern Muslim Arabs.
Liberian authorities have released former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf after she had served only two weeks of a 10-year sentence for sedition, Liberian television reported. Johnson-Sirleaf, 46, who was minister of finance until Sgt. Samuel K. Doe took power in 1980, was convicted of the charges September 13 after she called the Liberian authorities “idiots” during a July speech in Philadelphia. She also charged Doe with mismanagement of the economy.
Fighting was stepped up today between the Ugandan Army and guerrillas seeking control of Masaka, the country’s third-largest city. Masaka residents reported gunfire within the city limits. The government said Wednesday that its troops repulsed an attack by the rebel National Resistance Army on Masaka, 80 miles southwest of Kampala. But residents reached by telephone from Kampala said a major battle was raging late this afternoon. In neighboring Kenya, government and rebel delegates met twice for a total of about 30 minutes in their third round of peace talks. ”They agreed to meet again tomorrow morning,” said an official who attended the sessions.
The Senate voted to authorize large-scale but unspecified spending for the nation’s intelligence agencies in fiscal year 1986 after assurances from key senators that the bill would not violate limits in aid to Nicaraguan rebels. As usual, the bill did not disclose any totals for the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, the FBI or the intelligence operations of the Defense, State and Treasury departments. The Senate also adopted an amendment that would increase the budget for the FBI’s anti-terrorist activities by $19.5 million, to $59.5 million.
Senators, opposing hazardous waste, voted to provide $7.5 billion over five years to clean up abandoned hazardous waste dumps. The vote of 86 to 13 reflected the broad public acceptance and political potency that the hazardous waste legislation has acquired since it was first enacted five years ago. The money for the cleanup is to be raised from several sources, but under the Senate bill the bulk of the funds would come from a new broad-based tax on manufacturers and processors of raw materials with sales of $5 million or more annually. The tax, eight-hundredths of 1 percent, would be paid on the value of the materials manufactured or processed. The money would go to clean up toxic chemicals, metals and other hazardous materials that have been deposited in landfills or elsewhere in such a way that they threaten public health or the environment.
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously approved the nomination of James C. Miller III for budget director and sent his name to the Senate for confirmation. Miller, now head of the Federal Trade Commission, was selected by President Reagan to replace David A. Stockman as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
President Reagan attends a Domestic Policy Council meeting to discuss the Synfuel board, which is going out of business.
The adequacy of government funding for AIDS research was questioned again in Congress. A top public health official said he had recommended an additional $70 million increase in AIDS research spending next year, but a Harvard scientist warned that even that amount would not be enough to cope with what he termed a “mounting disaster.” Dr. James O. Mason, Acting Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Health and Human Services, told a Senate committee he had recommended that Federal spending for research on acquired immune deficiency syndrome be increased by $70 million above the Reagan Administration’s $126 million request for the fiscal year 1986. That request would increase spending by about $17 million over the current fiscal year, which ends September 30. Dr. Mason said the request for the $70 million more, which would be used primarily to support clinical tests of new drugs to combat the lethal disease, had been forwarded to the Office of Management and Budget for review and possible submission to Congress.
The screening of all troops assigned overseas for exposure to the AIDS virus has been proposed by Pentagon health officials, acting on the advice of civilian medical advisers, Defense Department officials said. The officials said the proposed screening for evidence of the virus that causes AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, would apply to 500,000 troops now stationed overseas and all personnel, including most of the 170,000 Marines based in the United States, who are considered ”deployable” on short notice. Under the proposed policy, which health officials expect to be approved by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and to be announced by mid-October, military personnel found to have been exposed to the virus would be given more extensive tests, and those found to have AIDS would be given a medical discharge from the service. One Pentagon official said that despite pressure from some high-ranking military leaders to expel troops who show evidence of exposure to the AIDS virus, health officials had concluded that such a drastic step was ”not medically justified.”
Scientists have infected monkeys with a disease almost identical to AIDS. The Harvard University scientists said they expected that the animals would provide a vitally needed model for experiments with vaccines and drug treatments against the lethal disorder. Researchers were buoyed by the news because they have lacked a satisfactory animal model for the study of AIDS. Most primates studied have failed to become infected with the human AIDS virus. Chimpanzees have been infected with the virus, but in more than a year and a half not one of the more than 50 infected chimpanzees has shown any AIDS symptoms, making them poor subjects for research on anti-AIDS agents.
Thousands of sick, elderly Americans “are being denied admission to hospitals or catapulted out of hospital doors prematurely,” because of a Medicare cost-cutting program, Senator John. Heinz (R-Pennsylvania), chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, said at a hearing to discuss a study by the panel’s staff. The savings plan, established in 1983 to save the Medicare program from bankruptcy, requires that hospitals be paid a predetermined amount for the care of beneficiaries, depending on the diagnosis.
The Defense Department is moving to revoke the “top secret” security clearance of General Dynamics Corp. executive vice president Lester Crown because he was once involved in a bribery case in Illinois, Kathleen A. Buck, the Defense Department’s assistant general counsel, said. Pentagon policy prohibits security clearances for people who admit to felonious conduct, barring compelling reasons, Buck told the investigations subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. Buck said Crown has admitted that in 1972, while president of Material Service Corp., a General Dynamics subsidiary, he contributed to a fund to “bribe certain persons in the Illinois Legislature.”
The Federal Aviation Administration broadened its requirement for the inspection of Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines to cover all models, but officials said that the order is not expected to cause planes to be grounded because many airlines are exempt from the order and operators can make the inspections during routine maintenance. The directive to airlines stemmed from the crash of a British Airtours Boeing 737 in Manchester, England, last month in which one of the Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines broke apart during takeoff, killing 55 persons.
The computerized heart of the nation’s nuclear warning system is becoming “increasingly obsolete,” with inadequate capacity to respond to an all-out attack, the U.S. comptroller general told Congress. At a House hearing, in which a civilian author described the nation’s nuclear command, control and communications system as a mess, Comptroller General Charles A. Bowsher said the Pentagon cannot complete installation of state-of-the-art computer equipment until 1992 at the earliest.
A major hurricane advanced along the East Coast, pummeling North Carolina’s Outer Banks with wind and torrential rain and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of coastal residents as far north as New England. Hurricane warnings were posted from Edisto, South Carolina, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, amid the rising possibility that the storm might continue to roll up the Atlantic shoreline, menacing New Jersey, New York City, Long Island and New England. As the eye of the storm passed over Buxton, a small town facing Pamlico sound, winds dropped to 35 miles an hour before strengthening again as the storm continued on its track to the north. As the storm closed on the island, winds pushed water toward the western edge of Pamlico Sound, leaving boats in shallow harbors on the eastern edge of the sound resting on sand. The National Weather Service reported that the hurricane, described as one of the most powerful storms to stalk the Atlantic Coast, was moving on a course slightly east of due north at 20 to 25 miles an hour. The risk to the New York City area intensified.
As a hurricane warning was issued for New Jersey, New York City, Long Island and Connecticut, officials hurried to activate emergency plans and then braced for what could be the most destructive hurricane to approach the metopolitan area in this century. All public schools in New York City were ordered closed. Up to 2,500 people were being removed from Fire Island, while in New Jersey, about 10,000 residents of Long Beach Island were ordered to leave their homes.
Negotiators last night settled the 3-week-old strike by 3,700 teachers in Seattle, ending the nation’s largest teachers’ strike, while in Toronto, Ohio, officials announced a tentative agreement, enabling its 1,220 students to return to class next week. The settlement of the Seattle strike was announced shortly after Governor Booth Gardner entered the talks last night.
Mailers at The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News signed an agreement today on job security, paving the way for nine striking unions to bargain together with the newspapers’ publisher on the remaining issues in the 20-day-old walkout.
Governor George Deukmejian signed a bill today that requires most able-bodied welfare recipients in California to seek jobs or training as a condition of receiving their welfare checks. ”We are substituting an out-of-date, ineffective welfare system with a mandatory plan to give the disadvantaged a chance to stand on their own, ” Mr. Deukmejian said.
Scientists said that they have isolated a gene that instructs the body to build tiny new blood vessels, a crucial step in cancer growth, and that this could open new strategies to defeat malignancies. The researchers who purified and analyzed the protein, angiogenin, which the gene controls, said it is the first time that an organ-forming protein has been understood in detail. The discovery represents 10 years of work by Dr. Bert L. Vallee and colleagues at Harvard Medical School.
Major League Baseball:
At a damp and cold Wrigley, 11 Cubs reach base against Gooden, but none score as the Mets win, 3–0. The 20-year-old superstar allowed eight hits and struck out only seven batters, but he kept the Mets in pursuit of the first-place Cardinals with only nine games to play. St. Louis won tonight and maintained its four-game lead. Gooden posted more glittering numbers: This was his 23rd victory against 4 defeats, the best record in the big leagues. It was his 15th complete game in 34 starts this season. It was his eighth shutout, breaking the Mets’ club record, which he had shared with Jerry Koosman (1968) and Jon Matlack (1974). And it maintained his ranking at the top of the major leagues with 258 strikeouts in 267 innings and an earned run average of 1.51.
The Cards’ John Tudor picks up his 20th win of the season with his Major League-leading 10th shutout, a 5–0 four-hitter against the Phillies. It’s the most in 10 years and the most by a lefty since Koufax in 1963. Tudor (20-8) became the majors’ fourth 20-game winner this year. He struck out seven and walked none as his earned run average dropped to 2.04, second in the league behind the Mets’ Dwight Gooden. The Cards scored their first run in the second inning as Darrell Porter doubled and later crossed the plate on a double-play grounder.
Andy McGaffigan pitched seven strong innings and doubled home a run with his first hit of the season to lead Cincinnati to a 6–1 victory over the Braves. The Reds moved to five and a half games behind the idle Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West. McGaffigan (3-3) allowed just four singles before yielding in the eighth to John Franco, who gave up a run-batted-in infield single to Dale Murphy. Ted Power got the last four outs for his 25th save. Steve Bedrosian (7-14) took the loss, allowing six hits in six and one-third innings. Ron Oester drew a two-out walk from Bedrosian in the second and scored from first on McGaffigan’s double to right-center field. That was only McGaffigan’s third major-league hit and broke an 0-for-24 streak this season.
The game between the Montreal Expos and Pittsburgh Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium was postponed due to rain. This game will not be made up.
The Blue Jays lost to the Boston Red Sox, 4-1, tonight in a game that started 3 hours 18 minutes late because of rains preceding Hurricane Gloria. Toronto’s lead over the Yankees, who were rained out, dropped to five and a half games in the American League East. Jeff Sellers, a rookie, tossed a three-hitter, and Mike Greenwell, another rookie, hit his second two-run homer in as many games to lead the Red Sox. Doyle Alexander (16-9) took the loss.
The game between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium was postponed due to rain. This game will not be made up.
The Royals downed the Mariners, 5–2. Charlie Leibrandt and Dan Quisenberry combined on an eight-hitter to boost Kansas City into a tie for first with California in the American League West. Liebrandt (17-8) pitched seven and two-thirds innings. He allowed seven hits and both Mariner runs before giving way to Quisenberry, who pitched the rest of the way to record his 35th save. Bill Swift (5-10) took the loss after going only three innings.
The Orioles routed the Brewers, 9–1. Dennis Martinez tossed a seven-hitter, and Alan Wiggins and Mike Young each drove in two runs to lead the Orioles over the Brewers at Milwaukee.
The White Sox out-slugged the A’s, 11–7. Ron Kittle hit two homers and drove in five runs to lead the White Sox over the A’s at Oakland.
The Rangers shut out the Twins, 2–0. Jose Guzman and Dwayne Henry combined on a six-hitter, and Pete O’Brien hit a home run as the Rangers beat the Twins at Arlington, Texas.
New York Mets 3, Chicago Cubs 0
Atlanta Braves 1, Cincinnati Reds 6
Baltimore Orioles 9, Milwaukee Brewers 1
Chicago White Sox 11, Oakland Athletics 7
Kansas City Royals 5, Seattle Mariners 2
Philadelphia Phillies 0, St. Louis Cardinals 5
Minnesota Twins 0, Texas Rangers 2
Boston Red Sox 4, Toronto Blue Jays 1
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1320.79 (+8.74)
Born:
Greg Stiemsma, NBA center (Boston Celtics, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans, Toronto Raptors), in Randolph, Wisconsin.
Lenna Kuurmaa, Estonian pop-rock singer and guitarist (Vanilla Ninja – “Tough Enough”), in Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet union.
History Diaries 