France rejected a Soviet offer for separate arms negotiations between the two nations. President Francois Mitterrand, appearing at a joint news conference with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, joined the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, in turning down the offer for direct negotiations between the Soviet Union and Britain and France. On Thursday, Mr. Gorbachev offered a “separate agreement” on nuclear arms with France as well as with Britain, saying, “It is time to start between us a direct dialogue.” He made the proposal in conjunction with his formal presentation of the Soviet Union’s arms offer to the United States. In London, the Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, said any such direct negotiations with Moscow could only follow a strategic arms agreement between the Soviet Union and the United States.
The Soviet leader’s press conference marked the first meeting between a Russian leader of his standing and the Western press in over 20 years. Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s performance, which showed him joking, preaching and thundering, suggested that the Soviet leadership had finally arrived in the television age. Not since Nikita S. Khrushchev harangued and bantered with Western reporters 25 years ago had a top Soviet leader submitted himself directly to the massed world press, and never had one handled himself with such self-confidence. Today’s news conference, which was broadcast in its entirety in Moscow, showed an animated Mr. Gorbachev preaching, cajoling, joking, thundering and stonewalling in a manner than had long been thought the preserve of the West. Mr. Khrushchev also confronted reporters in Paris, on May 18, 1960, soon after the U-2 incident. The New York Times reported at the time that he did so with “a rolling barrage of threats, menaces and insults,” brandishing his fist, heaping vitriol on President Dwight D. Eisenhower and stunning those present with his crude force and fury.
The Soviet leadership’s new arms-control proposals have produced somewhat contradictory responses from the Reagan Administration, which seems pleased to have the proposals but unhappy with much of their content. So far, no single, coherent statement of policy has emerged from the Administration about the highly publicized visit of Mikhail S. Gorbachev to Paris, where he has been trying to generate support in Western Europe for the various Soviet proposals. Although some White House officials expressed concern in the past about “the public relations war,” the attitude of officials who were interviewed today seemed fairly relaxed. To some extent the reactions are following familiar lines.
Reagan Administration officials renewed charges today that for decades the Soviet Union had devoted more effort and money than the United States to devising ways to defend against nuclear attack. The officials acknowledged that their statements today were part an attempt to blunt criticism of the American program to develop such defenses.
The British opposition Labor Party passed a resolution today that condemned United States policy in Central America and said a future Labor government might supply Nicaragua with military aid. In the foreign policy debate, the party unanimously passed a resolution condemning United States foreign policy in Central America. The party resolved that “a future Labor government will put pressure on the United States to cease funding the contra forces and failing that, to supply military aid to Nicaragua for as long as, and as a counterbalance, to contra forces which are similarly supplied by the United States Government, the Central Intelligence Agency, private sources, etc.”
A Bulgarian airline official accused of being an accomplice of the Turk who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981 had his days in court this week, and he denied having anything to do with the attempt on the Pope’s life. The official, Sergei I. Antonov, the former head of the Rome office of the Government-run Bulgarian airline, was accused by Mehmet Ali Ağca, the convicted assailant, of having helped plan and carry out the plot. When he took the stand Wednesday for the first of two days of testimony, Mr. Antonov trembled, stared blankly and clasped his hands nervously, prompting the chief judge, Severino Santiapichi, to inquire whether he needed time to calm down.
Raisa Gorbachev may have electrified many Westerners and Russians with her elegance, but her first official appearance here in the world fashion capital has drawn mixed reviews. Parisian eyes zeroed in on Mrs. Gorbachev from the moment she stepped off an airplane Wednesday with her husband, the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. In London last December, when the Gorbachevs paid a visit before Mr. Gorbachev became Soviet leader, her furs and high-heeled boots brought headlines like “Soviet Realism’s Answer to Princess Diana.” But in the context of Paris, many think Mrs. Gorbachev looks “elegant” — but not what Parisians call chic.
The Security Council condemned Israel’s raid on the Palestine Liberation Organization’s headquarters in Tunisia. The vote was 14 to 0, with the United States abstaining. Diplomats said the United States agreed not to veto the resolution after it was changed to substitute condemnation of Israel’s “act of armed aggression” for condemnation of the Israeli nation as a whole, and by eliminating a reference to the victims as “Tunisian and Palestinian civilians.” In carefully crafted remarks, the United States delegate, Lieutenant General Vernon A. Walters, said the United States could not support the resolution because it was one-sided. But he gave no specific explanation for the decision not to veto the measure.
The Soviet Union evacuated nonessential staff members and families of diplomats from its embassy in Muslim West Beirut in the wake of the kidnapping of four Russian officials Monday and the subsequent murder of one of them. Four embassy men were kidnapped on Monday and one was subsquently murdered, and the professed kidnappers have threatened to destroy the Soviet Embassy if all Russians did not leave the Muslim sector of the city by today. A Soviet Embassy source said the embassy would not be closed.
Shi’ite Muslim terrorists claim to have killed hostage William Buckley. The Lebanese authorities began an investigation today to try to verify an assertion by the underground group Islamic Holy War that it had killed William Buckley, one of six Americans it said it was holding hostage. The state radio said that although the police had little to go on, a full investigation had been ordered by senior government officials. By nightfall there was no sign of the body of Mr. Buckley, the 57-year-old political officer of the American Embassy in Beirut, who was kidnapped on March 16, 1984. Nor was there any other sign that he had been killed.
Muslim rebels fighting the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan have captured an army headquarters base and a government official, rebel spokesmen in Peshawar said today. They said the base was at Arighistan east of Kandahar, a city about 120 miles southwest of Kabul, the capital. The official was identified as Rozi Khan, government commissioner for the area. He was taken to a guerrilla camp at Chinartu, which also is east of Kandahar, said the rebel spokesmen. They said the rebels overran the headquarters base last Monday, capturing an undisclosed number of soldiers and two armored vehicles.
The nomination of Winston Lord as Ambassador to China has been stalled in the Senate, a Republican leadership aide said. Mr. Lord, who was head of the State Department’s policy planning staff in the mid-1970’s, is the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Three Republican Senators — Jesse Helms of North Carolina and James A. McClure and Steve Symms, both of Idaho — blocked the nomination’s move to the floor today. Several Democrats have tried to hold up all Reagan Administration nominations, the aide said, to protest the use of “recess appointments” to circumvent the Senate.
Tokyo was rocked tonight by its most severe earthquake in 62 years, a sudden jolt that halted trains and caused skyscrapers to sway. There were no reported deaths and only a few injuries. Property damage was mild. But even in this city, which is accustomed to seismic rumblings on a regular basis, the earthquake frightened many residents, especially because it closely followed the recent disaster in Mexico.
Rescue workers in Mexico City today continued to tunnel in the rubble of an apartment building destroyed by the earthquake last month, seeking a 9-year-old boy they think has been trapped alive for 16 days. “The workers in the tunnel consider themselves to be very close to the boy because they hear sounds that in accordance with their experience as rescuers makes them think the sounds are coming from the boy inside,” said Col. J. D. Ramirez Garrido of the Mexico City police. Rescuers have identified the boy as Luis Ramon Nafarrate, who was in the apartment with his grandfather when the earthquake struck Mexico City September 19.
In any other country, a renowned South African novelist was saying the other day, people would have resigned. The theme was echoed by a newspaper editor, who compared his country’s calamities with those of France. There, he pointed out, a Cabinet minister had resigned after press reports that he had concealed his role in the sinking of an antinuclear protest ship, while President Francois Mitterrand’s own position in the episode is widely regarded as uncertain. That is not the way things happen in South Africa, he said.
In recent days the government has acknowledged, almost casually, that it has been lying to its constituents for years over its involvement with forces seeking the overthrow of the governments in Angola and Mozambique. After equally long years of official denials that torture and police brutality are routine features of the country’s prisons, a Supreme Court judge last week upheld a complaint by a district surgeon, Dr. Wendy Orr, that hundreds of detainees had been beaten. The authorities’ credibility, that is to say, seems to be at its lowest point since South Africa invaded Angola in 1975 but denied to its own people that it had done so.
Senators critical of a proposal to balance the Federal budget by 1991 blocked a vote on the plan today as members of Congress were torn between its political attraction and its possible flaws, both constitutional and fiscal. Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, the Senate majority leader, scheduled unusual Saturday and Sunday sessions in the hope of breaking the impasse. The pressure for quick action arises from the fact that the budget-balancing plan is being offered as an amendment to a bill to raise the Government’s debt ceiling to more than $2,000 billion. The Treasury Department says the debt will reach its present ceiling of $1,824 billion on Monday, raising the possibility of the Government’s delaying payment of some of its bills or benefit checks until more cash comes in. The budget-balancing proposal lost legislative momentum despite an effort by Mr. Dole to bring it to a vote and an effort by President Reagan to give it a lift. Mr. Reagan formally endorsed the measure today in a Rose Garden ceremony and called on the Senate to pass it. “The United States Government is not only going to pay its bills, but we’re also going to take away the credit cards,” Mr. Reagan said. “From now on it’ll be cash and carry.”
The Senate confirmed James C. Miller 3d today to succeed David A. Stockman as director of the Office of Management and Budget. The vote, taken without debate, was 90 to 2.
Edward L. Howard, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, traveled to Austria in 1984 and sold Soviet intelligence agents highly secret information about American intelligence sources and methods, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The specifics of espionage charges against Mr. Howard, who disappeared from his job as a state financial analyst here two weeks ago, were contained in an affidavit filed Wednesday in Federal District Court in Albuquerque, N.M., but sealed at the request of the Government until today. One intelligence source in Washington said tonight that the information provided by Mr. Howard had caused “enormous” damage to American intelligence-gathering in Moscow. He said that some Russian operatives for the C.I.A. were thought to have been executed by the Russians after their identities were revealed through the data Mr. Howard provided. In one of two affidavits made available today as part of an amended Federal espionage complaint against Mr. Howard, originally filed Sept. 23, the F.B.I. said that the origin of its information was “a confidential source with intimate knowledge of Soviet intelligence matters.”
The defense in the case of the first agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigtion charged with espionage rested today without calling the former agent to testify. Attorneys for the defendant, Richard W. Miller, declined to discuss why he would not testify in Federal District Court. At the trial this summer of Mr. Miller’s two co-defendants in the case, Svetlana and Nikolay Ogorodnikov, a Soviet emigre couple, and in pretrial hearings, Mr. Miller did testify. His testimony was marked by frequent contraditictions and an inability to remember certain key events leading up to his arrest on espionage charges last October 2.
The military crew of the space shuttle Atlantis deployed two $100 million communication satellites for the Department of Defense today, according to reliable sources. The Atlantis mission is classified as secret by the Pentagon, and officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, following strict secrecy rules, would not comment today on the flight. On Thursday the space agency released a statement saying that the crew was doing well and that all shuttle systems were performing satisfactorily.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has assigned almost two dozen agents to investigate the apparent sabotage of an airplane that crashed shortly after takeoff near here last Sunday, killing the pilot and 16 skydivers aboard the plane. The F.B.I. entered the investigation this week at the request of the National Transportation Safety Board after sugar was found in the plane’s fuel system. The plane was owned by David Lee Williams, a 35-year-old Atlanta real estate developer who was one of those killed in the crash. Bureau officials have confirmed that Mr. Williams was a friend of Albert C. Thornton 2nd, who fell to his death last month in Knoxville, Tennessee. Mr. Thornton, 40, a lawyer from Paris, Kentucky, who was a former narcotics detective, was killed when his parachute failed to open after he bailed out of a private plane with 75 pounds of cocaine strapped to his waist.
The Unit 1 nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island ran smoothly today, its first full day of operation in the six and a half years since its twin, Unit 2, was damaged in the nation’s worst commercial nuclear accident, plant officials said. Gordon Tomb, a spokesman for the G.P.U. Nuclear Corporation, which is operating the plant, said it would take about three months to bring the reactor to its full generating capacity of 800 megawatts. The Unit 1 reactor was shut down for refueling when the accident began at Unit 2 March 28, 1979. The Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave permission in May to restart Unit 1.
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, former chief United States delegate to the United Nations, says she will not run for the Senate from Maryland. “I sincerely believe I can make a more substantial contribution to the public discussion of major issues by continuing to write and speak about them than I could by plunging into intensive concentration in Maryland’s affairs,” Dr. Kirkpatrick said in a statement issued Thursday from her office at Georgetown University, where she is a professor of political science.
Two teacher strikes in Pennsylvania were settled yesterday and another was suspended, but more than 12,000 public school pupils remained out of class elsewhere in the state. Some 32,000 college, high school and elementary students were out of classes in Illinois, among them 26,000 students at Triton College in River Grove, where 240 faculty members struck Monday. Also, a strike in Tustin, California, was in its third day, but the 10,000-student public school system remained open, manned by teachers who crossed picket lines and some substitutes. The tenatative settlements in Pennsylvania were in the Montour and Peters Township School Districts.
The nation’s unemployment rate rose slightly in September, edging up one-tenth of a point to 7 percent, as the number of manufacturing jobs showed its sharpest decline in three years, the Labor Department reported.
With concern over AIDS growing, New York Governor Cuomo and Mayor Koch indicated they are reconsidering their opposition to the closing of bathhouses catering primarily to homosexuals. Meanwhile, Schools Chancellor Nathan Quinones said that alcohol-dipped cotton swabs would be available in all classrooms and that all custodians would be provided with rubber gloves.
Jack Nardi, who pleaded guilty in a payroll scheme involving a local of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Cleveland, now wants to retract his plea, an attorney says. The move could once again force the Justice Department to seek to fend off efforts by private lawyers to learn why the department decided not to prosecute Jackie Presser, president of the union.
Organized crime groups from Asia threaten to become “fixtures in America’s mainstream economy” rivaling the Mafia, a Presidential commission said. President Reagan’s Commission on Organized Crime said that groups in Japan and Taiwan are beginning to “corrupt legitimate segments of American society.”
In the spring of 1980 someone purchased a truck in Hong Kong and donated it to a Chinese village near Canton where a graduate student from Stanford University was doing research. Now, after a four-year investigation by Stanford, which included private detectives and handwriting experts, the school believes that the student, Steven W. Mosher, bought the truck with research funds intended for purchasing photographic equipment. The misuse of funds emerged as a central charge against Mr. Mosher in a 75-page letter written Monday by Donald Kennedy, the president of Stanford, upholding a 1983 faculty vote to expel Mr. Mosher from the school’s doctoral program in anthropology. It was Stanford’s first detailed account of its decision to dismiss him, an action that touched off a dispute over academic freedom and raised charges by Mr. Mosher and others that Stanford had given in to pressure from Peking.
Major League Baseball:
The message board kept flashing the scores from Texas, and each time the ovation from the crowd at Royals Stadium built slowly into a joyful roar. The California Angels folded quietly under a Texas sky tonight, and the Kansas City Royals moved one game closer to their sixth division title in the last 10 years. The Royals beat the Oakland A’s, 4–2, this evening and can now clinch the American League West crown before they arrive at the ballpark Saturday evening. The Angels were shut out by the Rangers, 6–, leaving California two games out with two to play. An Angels loss in the afternoon would put Kansas City into the playoffs for the second straight year.
Dave Schmidt scattered seven hits for his first complete game of the season to lead Texas to a 6–0 shutoutvictory over California that dealt a severe blow to the Angels’ chances of winning the American League West. The Angels, who entered the game trailing division-leading Kansas City by a game, left five men on base in the first two innings, and then were tamed by Schmidt (7-6), who retired the last 13 men he faced. Schmidt struck out three and walked one.
The Yankees were down a run with two out in the ninth in Toronto. But Butch Wynegar aborted the celebration. He hit a home run that tied the game, then watched as Lloyd Moseby dropped a fly ball in center field to give the Yankees another run. The ninth-inning rally catapulted the Yan kees past Toronto, 4–3, slashing the Blue Jays’ lead over them to two games with two — or three — to play. If the Blue Jays win either of the next two games between the teams, they will become division champions for the first time in their nine-year history. If the Yankees win both games, each team will have to play a makeup game Monday. If they were to remain tied after that, they would have a one-game playoff Tuesday. Wynegar’s game-tying home run, his fifth of the season and first since June 7, stunned the record Toronto crowd of 47,686. They were ready to erupt in ecstasy over a championship they have sensed all season. Equally as shocking was the error by Moseby, the center fielder, that enabled Bobby Meacham to score the tie-breaking run.
Tom Seaver moved into third place on the career strikeout list as he led the White Sox past the Mariners, 7–5. With relief from Dave Wehrmeister, Seaver (16-11) got his 304th career victory. He passed Gaylord Perry, who had been in the third spot with 3,534 career strikeouts. By striking out seven Mariners, the 19-year veteran right-hander, who gave up eight hits in five innings, raised his mark to 3,537.
Milwaukee outlasted the Red Sox in twelve innings, winning, 8–7. Rookie Billy Joe Robidoux drove in the tie-breaking run with a two-out double in the 12th inning, rallying the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Orioles downed the Tigers, 5–2. Fred Lynn hit a three-run homer as the Baltimore Orioles pounded old nemesis Dan Petry and defeated the Tigers behind Scott McGregor’s nine-hitter.
The Indians bested the Twins, 8–6. Jerry Willard’s one-out single in the ninth inning drove home pinch-runner Otis Nixon from second base, lifting the Indians.
With their 100th victory, the St. Louis Cardinals tonight clinched at least a tie for the National League East title. Bob Forsch combined with Todd Worrell to stop the Chicago Cubs, 4–2, on a six-hitter while Andy Van Slyke hit his 13th home run. The Cardinals maintained their two-game lead over the second-place Mets, who defeated the Montreal Expos, 9–4. Each team has two games remaining. Although the Cardinals were loudly saluted by their fans in the crowd of 40,618, the Cardinals’ manager, Whitey Herzog, and his players did not celebrate the clinching of a tie. “You don’t celebrate,” Herzog said, “when you might have to play the tie off Monday in New York.” Three weeks ago, after losing two out of three to the Mets at Shea Stadium, the Cardinals won 14 of their next 15 games. And after losing two out of three to the Mets here earlier this week, they jumped into a 2–0 lead by the fourth inning against Dennis Eckersley, the Cubs’ starter. In the Cards’ seventh, their catcher, Darrell Porter, led off with a drive to left center for a double. When the ball was mishandled by Bob Dernier, he went to third, then scored on Ozzie Smith’s triple into the rightfield corner. Smith scored for a 4–0 lead as Forsch’s one-hop liner off the shortstop Shawon Dunston’s glove rolled into left field for a double.
Two games out with two to go: That’s where the Mets stood last night in their forlorn and fading pennant race after they beat the Montreal Expos, 9-4, and won a game but lost a day. They lost a day because the St. Louis Cardinals, meanwhile, were beating the Chicago Cubs, 4-2, clinching at least a tie for first place in the National League East. One more victory by the Cardinals, or one more loss by the Mets, and the chase will be over. “We still have a breath of air left,” said Keith Hernandez. “One.” The Mets’ hottest performer continued to be Hernandez, the old Cardinal. He got five hits in five times at bat Thursday night against his former teammates. He got three hits and a walk last night against the Expos. He now is hitting .310, his highest mark in five months. And he has eight hits in a row, breaking the Mets’ club record of seven set by John Milner in 1972.
Wayne Krenchicki hit a grand slam homer and Cincinnati right-hander John Stuper limited National League West champion Los Angeles to two hits for six innings as the Reds downed the Dodgers, 4–2. Stuper, 8–5, had a no-hitter until Mike Marshall lined a single to center field with one out in the fifth. Mike Smith pitched the next two innings, then Ted Power worked the ninth for his 27th save.
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia split a doubleheader. The Pirates win the opener, 7–2. The Philllies came back to capture the nightcap, 8–5, as Tom Foley slammed a three-run homer with one out in the bottom of the ninth to give the Phillies the victory. Don Carman, who pitched two hitless innings, improved his record to 9–4. Jose DeLeon, 2–19, was the loser..
The Astros bowed to the Padres, 4–3. Mario Ramirez’s home run paced the Padres. Mark Thurmond, 7-11, went 6 ⅔ innings but departed in favor of Lance McCullers when the Astros loaded the bases with two outs in the seventh inning. The rookie right-hander ended the threat by getting Bill Doran to fly out to center field.
The Giants blanked the Braves, 1–0. Rookie right-hander Roger Mason pitched a four-hitter and pinch hitter Chris Brown doubled in the only run in the ninth inning. Mason, 1–3, registered his first complete game and first shutout of his major league career. He struck out 10 and walked two.
Detroit Tigers 2, Baltimore Orioles 5
Milwaukee Brewers 8, Boston Red Sox 7
Seattle Mariners 5, Chicago White Sox 7
Oakland Athletics 2, Kansas City Royals 4
Cincinnati Reds 4, Los Angeles Dodgers 2
Cleveland Indians 8, Minnesota Twins 6
Montreal Expos 4, New York Mets 9
Pittsburgh Pirates 7, Philadelphia Phillies 2
Pittsburgh Pirates 5, Philadelphia Phillies 8
Houston Astros 3, San Diego Padres 4
Atlanta Braves 0, San Francisco Giants 1
Chicago Cubs 2, St. Louis Cardinals 4
California Angels 0, Texas Rangers 6
New York Yankees 4, Toronto Blue Jays 3
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1328.74 (-4.37)
History Diaries 