President Reagan orders U.S. Military planes to intercept the Egyptian plane carrying the 4 hijackers and force it to land in Italy to turn the terrorists over for prosecution. President Reagan, en route to Washington from two appearances in the Chicago area, approved a plan today for American planes to intercept an Egyptian commercial jet carrying four hijackers, the White House said tonight. Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said the final go-ahead by the President had come aboard Air Force One, where Mr. Reagan was returning with several senior aides. They included Donald T. Regan, the White House chief of staff; Robert C. McFarlane, the national security adviser, and Patrick J. Buchanan, the communications director. Mr. Speakes said the President approved the general outlines for such a mission around midday after delivering a speech on his plan to overhaul the Federal tax system to several hundred employees at a Sara Lee Kitchens in Deerfield, Illinois.
U.S. Navy fighter jets force Egyptian plane carrying hijackers of Italian ship Achille Lauro to land in Italy, gunmen are placed in custody. The four hijackers arrived in Italy, according to the Reagan Administration and Congressional sources. They said that an Egyptian plane carrying the hijackers of an Italian cruise ship had been intercepted by United States Navy planes and forced to land at a United States-NATO air base in Sicily. A spokesman said the four terrorists had been taken into custody by Italian authorities. In a late evening news conference, Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said President Reagan had ordered the dramatic military action after learning that Egypt had turned down repeated American pleas to prosecute the four gunmen and was flying them to freedom. The hijackers are believed to have killed an elderly American tourist aboard the cruise ship. The United States intends to seek “the prompt extradition” of the hijackers from Italy, Mr. Speakes said. Later, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger said the United States hoped the Italians would waive their right to try the hijackers and would allow them to be prosecuted in the United States.
The four Palestinian hijackers had not intended to seize the cruise liner but did so in desperation after the crew uncovered their weapons, according to Israeli and Arab sources. They said the four had boarded the Achille Lauro for the purpose of getting into Israel at Ashdod, the next port-of-call. The four Palestinians aboard the Achille Lauro intended to stay aboard as passengers until the cruise liner reached Ashdod, Israel, and then planned either to shoot up the harbor or take Israelis hostage, according to Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab informants. The Israelis were to be held to bargain for the release of 50 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. The leader of the faction that ordered the operation, Mohammed Abbas, also known as Abul Abbas, is a close associate of Yasir Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and was reportedly sent by Mr. Arafat to deal with the hijackers after their original plan to infiltrate Israel at Ashdod had gone awry. According to the informants, the four members of the group aborted their plans and seized the ship when their weapons were discovered by the crew after the Achille Lauro had left Alexandria on Monday. The informants say the original plan and the hijacking were part of a bungled attempt to exact revenge for Israel’s raid last week on the P.L.O. headquarters near Tunis.
Passengers from the Achille Lauro were quoted as describing how the hijackers had dragged an elderly American tourist from his wheelchair and fatally shot him in cold blood. The Italian Ambassador, Giovanni Migliudo, put together his account of the killing of Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old resident of Manhattan, after six hours of interviews with some of the former hostages. He said the killing of the tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, had taken place on Tuesday when the ship was near Tartus, Syria. “The hijackers had asked to be put in contact with the Italian and U.S. Ambassadors in Damascus to demand the liberation of 50 Palestinians held in Israel,” the Italian news agency, ANSA, quoted the Ambassador as saying. “But the answer was slow in coming and to exercise further pressure, the hijackers decided to kill a first hostage.”
Reagan Administration officials and legislators reacted exuberantly tonight to the news that American warplanes had seized the four hijackers who apparently killed an elderly American aboard an Italian cruise ship. “Thank God we’ve won one,” said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York. The comment summed up the mood in this startled capital after years of witnessing the Carter and Reagan administrations struggling in vain to cope with Middle East terrorism and attacks against the United States. Officials pointed out that it was nearly six years ago that Iranian revolutionaries seized the United States Embassy in Tehran and virtually made a hostage of the Carter Administration. Mr. Carter found himself unable to fulfill his threats against terrorists and, in the case of a military raid to rescue the Americans held hostage in Iran, failed in a humiliating manner.
Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger praised Navy fighter pilots early this morning for “high military skill” in intercepting an Egyptian plane carrying four hijackers of an Italian cruise ship. Mr. Weinberger, briefing reporters on the operation, refused to say whether the four F-14’s from the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga had been prepared to use force if necessary to divert the Egyptian aircraft. Mr. Weinberger also disclosed, in an apparent reference to American military special operations units reportedly deployed to the region, that before the hijackers of the Italian ship, the Achille Lauro, surrendered, the United States was “prepared to take action against the ship.” He added, “We were prepared to do that, I think, effectively and successfully.”
The four hijackers aboard an Egyptian plane that was diverted by United States jet fighters to Italy today could probably be prosecuted either in Italy or the United States, and perhaps in both countries. Italy clearly has jurisdiction to prosecute the hijackers for piracy of an Italian ship, officials and experts said, and it has custody of them now. The United States could prosecute them — if Italy surrenders custody -under a 1984 law that makes it a crime to take a “national of the United States” hostage anywhere in the world and perhaps other laws, officials said. In addition, international law has traditonally classified pirates as international criminals who can be arrested and prosecuted by any nation in the world.
Early next month, the Dutch Government will approve the deployment of American ground-launched cruise missiles despite an unusual high-level Soviet move to sway it from its decision, according to senior Government officials. The long-postponed decision by Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers’ center-right coalition Government is being anxiously watched by Washington as an important signal of NATO resolve before President Reagan meets with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, in Geneva on November 19. The Netherlands will be the last of five Western European nations to receive American medium-range missiles. But while the Lubbers Government plans to guarantee the deployment of 48 Tomahawk missiles through a five-year treaty with the United States, the opposition Labor Party has vowed to reverse the decision if it comes to power in elections to be held in May.
The Government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher promised its supporters today that it would stiffen criminal penalties on rioting and “hooliganism” and maintain firm control on immigration. The pledges came at the annual Conservative Party conference in highly charged debates on law and order and race relations, held in the shadow of the inner city rioting that has swept through Britain in the last month. The new Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, said Parliament would be asked to enact a public order law that would define more clearly as criminal behavior offenses committed during riots or other violent disorders such as those that have occurred in the stands at British soccer matches. The police would be given new authority to control threatening crowds, he said, and to bring charges of disorderly conduct — a new criminal offense here — against rowdy elements.
French President Francois Mitterrand flew into West Berlin with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to reaffirm France’s commitment to the city’s security as one of its guaranteeing powers. “You should interpret my presence here as a sign of solid, durable and vigilant friendship,” Mitterrand said in a civic welcoming ceremony. His was only the second postwar visit to the city by a French head of state.
A 34-year-old businessman and right-wing activist has been arrested on suspicion of spying for East Germany, the chief West German federal prosecutor said today. It was not immediately clear if the case was related to the espionage revelations that embarrassed Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Government in August and September, in which the man in charge of finding enemy spies defected and several suspected East German agents, some in key positions in the Bonn Government, left for home.
The police detained five men in Warsaw today who tried to broadcast a Radio Solidarity appeal to boycott general elections next week, witnesses said. One man setting up loudspeakers on the roof of a cafe slipped out of the grasp of two security officers and escaped in a passing car. Scuffles broke out as onlookers crowded around the car and prevented the plainclothes policemen from giving chase. A crowd of several hundred people gathered in the square. Leaflets were scattered calling on people to boycott next Sunday’s elections, and a group chanted “Solidarity! Solidarity!” as uniformed policemen arrived. They detained five men. Underground leaders of the banned trade union have urged people to stay at home next Sunday.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz told Congress that refusing Jordan a $1.9-billion advanced weapons package would cripple efforts to revive the Mideast peace process. Shultz faced skeptical questioning from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as the first witness in hearings on President Reagan’s plan for the largest-ever American arms sale to the moderate Arab country. Several committee members told Shultz that King Hussein has made statements of willingness to enter the peace process but has not followed up with concrete actions, a claim that Shultz vigorously disputed.
Muslim extremists said in a statement published in Beirut that they will not free three kidnaped Soviet Embassy officials, even though their main demand, a halt to fighting in Tripoli, has been met. Now that Syrian troops have moved into Tripoli to monitor a cease-fire, the extremists said, “We will continue holding the Soviet spies until we are satisfied with Syria’s intentions.” The extremists kidnaped four Soviets on September 30, killing one of them two days later.
Afghan rebels are trying to recover the body of an American journalist killed in southern Afghanistan but fear Communist forces have mined the area to prevent them from reaching it, three Americans who traveled with him said today. The journalist, Charles Thornton, 50 years old, of The Arizona Republic, was one of up to 30 people killed in at least three helicopter ambushes last month just north of Kandahar.
India announced tonight that a new cease-fire agreement had been negotiated between the Government of Sri Lanka and leaders of one of the main guerrilla groups on the island. The officials expressed hope that the new cease-fire could lead to a renewal of discussions to achieve a political settlement ending nearly three years of spreading warfare in Sri Lanka. The discussions had bogged down in recent months because of violations of the previously agreed upon cease-fire. Sri Lanka accused the guerrillas of killing policemen and army troops, and the guerrillas accused the police of indiscriminate attacks on Tamil civilians.
Vietnam agrees in principle to allowing U.S. excavation teams into the Hanoi area to search for missing American servicemen, a ranking Vietnamese official said. Vo Dong Giang, No. 2 in the Foreign Ministry, said in an Associated Press interview at the United Nations that Vietnamese will conduct most of the searches but that for crash sites that are very difficult to reach, or where heavy equipment is needed, Hanoi may ask for U.S. help. Sources said the two sides have agreed to a joint survey and excavation of a crash site near Hanoi as an experiment.
More than 50,000 Panamanians marched in Panama City to demand an independent investigation into the slaying of Hugo Spadafora, an adventurer whose family asserts that he was killed on orders from the military. It was the largest demonstration since a mass protest against alleged election fraud last year. The decapitated body of Spadafora, a critic of the military, was found three weeks ago in Costa Rica near the Panama border.
Leftist rebels killed at least 40 Salvadoran soldiers and wounded 68 in a lightning raid before dawn today on the main training base for Government recruits near this coastal town. The raid was the most damaging guerrilla action against Government forces this year and one of the few large attacks in the last year and a half. It suggested that the guerrillas still have the ability to carry out well-planned hit-and-run actions at a time when their military fortunes have otherwise seemed to be slipping. Despite warnings of possible rebel attack, security at the base appears to have been lax. Guerrilla squads penetrated the perimeter and dropped grenades into barracks of sleeping troops, according to three different accounts by soldiers who said they had fought off attackers. From about 100 yards away, other rebels fired 90-millimeter recoilless rifle rounds, RPG-7 rockets and mortars point-blank into the tin-sheeted barracks. Five American military advisers were at the base during the attack, according to James Williams, a spokesman for the United States Embassy. None of the Americans were hurt, he said, adding that he “believed” the advisers had not taken part in the fighting, but that he could not confirm that they had not.
Sudan adopts an interim constitution.
Famine has eased across Africa with good rains that broke a devastating drought, but five countries will still need emergency food aid next year, the Food and Agriculture Organization said. The U.N. agency listed the countries as Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Sudan. At the height of the drought last year, the organization had 21 countries on its emergency list.
Opposition parties are threatening to boycott the first multiparty election in more than 130 years in the West African nation of Liberia. Opponents of General Samuel K. Doe’s military regime, which took power in a coup in 1980, have placed candidates on the ballot for next Tuesday’s voting for a president, 26 Senate seats and 65 House of Representatives seats. But they say they may tell their supporters not to vote if they are not allowed to monitor the counting. General Doe, 35 years old, has reportedly said that after the election, all Liberians must join his National Democratic Party. General Doe prohibited political activity until the summer of 1984, when he promulgated a new Constitution and announced that elections would be held in late 1985 for a civilian government to be installed in January 1986. But he barred the two most popular opposition parties, the United People’s Party and Liberian People’s Party, from appearing on the ballot. Three opposition parties cleared financial and legal hurdles to win ballot space.
The United States faces no mineral shortages in the near future because of reliance on imports from South Africa, but policy-makers should make long-range plans because of political uncertainty there, Reagan Administration officials told Congress. Robert Wilson, director of the Commerce Department’s Office of Strategic Resources, said the United States gets 55% of its chromium from South Africa, 49% of its platinum, 44% of its vanadium and 39% of its manganese. All are considered critical for industry and defense. The United States has a $12-billion stockpile of important minerals.
The authorities said today that five people, including a 3-week-old baby, had been killed in new violence in South Africa. More than 730 people have been killed in the last 13 months. The infant died Wednesday night after a group of blacks threw a gasoline bomb into a private house in the township of Umlazi, near Durban, according to the police. Two other blacks died in similar incidents in the township. The police said residents of the houses were believed to be supporters of the United Democratic Front, a multiracial opposition group. In the township of Chesterville, in Natal, the body of a black who had a knife wound in the chest was found burned. Gasoline-soaked tires, labeled “the necklace” by black radicals and used as a form of revenge against blacks who are viewed as informers or supporters of the Government, had been placed around the man and set aflame.
Pentagon arms policy is inadequate, according to a Presidential commission that is preparing to recommend a major overhaul. David R. Packard, who was named chairman of the commission in June, said the panel had concluded that fundamental changes should be made in the Defense Department’s organization to correct weapons problems involving poor quality, high prices, and long delays in purchasing. In his first extensive public comments since he was named to head the commission in June, David R. Packard said that management reforms and new codes of conduct would not be enough to repair a system he described as “worse than it was 15 years ago.” “I think we see at this time that some structural changes are necessary,” Mr. Packard said. He added that while the Reagan Administration’s military buildup had improved the strength and morale of the nation’s military, “I think the general conclusion is we should have gotten more for our money.” The commission is to send detailed recommendations to President Reagan early next year.
President Reagan travels to Chicago, Illinois to address the employees of Sara Lee.
A day after overwhelmingly approving a measure requiring a balanced budget by 1991, the Senate showed today, just as overwhelmingly, how fragile and political is its devotion to this goal. On three votes, the Senate rejected cutting the military budget, raising taxes or making Social Security subject to the automatic spending cuts in the budget-balancing plan. Senator Bill Bradley, the New Jersey Democrat who offered two of the amendments, told reporters that he wanted to dramatize the “irrationality” of the plan. “How serious can this body be about deficit reduction, when one day after voting for a balanced budget amendment it then votes not to do anything about Social Security, defense and taxes?” Mr. Bradley said on the Senate floor.
The Central Intelligence Agency failed to notify the Federal Bureau of Investigation after it learned more than a year ago that Edward L. Howard was considering becoming a Soviet spy, Government officials said today. According to court records, Mr. Howard told two agency employees in September 1984 that he was thinking of disclosing classified information to the Soviet Union. The bureau has sole responsibility for domestic espionage investigations and, under Federal law, the intelligence agency and all other Government agencies are supposed to report suspected espionage to the F.B.I. It is illegal for the C.I.A. or any other Federal agency to carry out surveillance or other actions within the United States to stop potential spies. Mr. Howard, 33 years old, a former intelligence agency officer who is now a fugitive, has been charged with espionage, accused of giving Soviet officials details of American intelligence operations in Moscow. Federal officials have called the disclosures serious and damaging.
For the third year in a row, U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended a record number of aliens trying to enter the United States illegally, and more of them were women, children and non-Mexicans than in any previous year, the Immigration and Naturalization Service said. The continued drawing power of the U.S. economy, coupled with the assignment of 519 new agents, largely accounted for the 11% increase to 1,265,054 apprehensions in fiscal 1985, which ended September 30, INS Commissioner Alan C. Nelson said. A larger number of family groups were detected at the borders, including 174,000 women and children, 14% more than a year earlier. In addition, the apprehensions included 40,500 non-Mexicans, a 13% increase.
The National Guard ordered everyone out of Mameyes shantytown at Ponce, Puerto Rico, after the government said it was considering making a common grave of the mud slide where up to 500 people are believed buried. A 30-hour tropical deluge causing an estimated $100 million in damage. triggered the avalanche Monday morning that toppled about 400 wood and tin shacks in the hillside shantytown outside Ponce. Gov. Rafael Hernandez Colon said a decision will be made soon whether to seal off the disaster site to avoid an outbreak of disease. Health officials said decomposing bodies, covered by mud, rocks and splintered homes, were creating a threat of water contamination, typhoid fever, mosquito-borne diseases, tetanus and diphtheria.
A House committee approved a five-year, $10.1-billion plan to expand the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program, endorsing stronger environmental standards than alternate proposals have prescribed. The House Public Works and Transportation Committee passed the measure on an unrecorded voice vote after an hour’s discussion. The Superfund legislation faces further review by other committees before it reaches the full House later this month. The Senate already has approved a $7.5-billion Superfund plan.
President Reagan rejected an offer today by the Senate Democratic leader, Robert Byrd, to allow confirmation of some nominees Mr. Byrd has blocked in a dispute involving appointments Mr. Reagan made while Congress was in recess. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, the majority leader, said Mr. Reagan wanted all of his nominations approved.
The Air Force today made public the military cargo for the first space shuttle flight from California, citing as its reason public interest in the mission, which will place the shuttle in a polar orbit. The move was considered a major step toward opening the entire flight to the public, including views of the poles. The shuttle Discovery is to lift off on the mission March 20 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California. From there, shuttles can be lofted south into north-south orbits rather than being sent into standard west-east orbits from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
[Ed: That mission will never fly. The loss of the Challenger in January, 1986 will prompt a prolonged hiatus in shuttle flights, and plans to operate manned launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base will be abandoned.]
Federal health officials said today that heart attack victims and certain others who suffered heart pains could reduce the likelihood of dying from further heart attacks by taking an aspirin a day. They suggested that such aspirin treatments might save 30,000 to 50,000 lives a year. The health officials also said that a newly approved device that can be surgically implanted in patients to counteract severe irregularities in heartbeat might save 10,000 to 20,000 additional lives a year. Margaret M. Heckler, Secretary of Health and Human Services, said that the two new developments constituted “dramatic new progress against death from heart attacks.”
The Justice Department is trying to stop the City of Omaha from adding 27 to 35 blacks to the list of candidates for a police recruit class, a city official says. Jim Fellows, a deputy city attorney, said the Justice Department contended that requiring more blacks constituted “quota hiring,” which the Reagan Administration opposed.
Prosecutors in the trial of Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards today introduced evidence indicating that the Governor ordered the appointment of an associate of one of his co-defendants as the state hearing officer for approving new hospital construction. Mr. Edwards is on trial in Federal District Court here on charges of racketeering and wire and mail fraud in connection with the approval of hospitals to receive reimbursements from the Federal Government.
Former Senator Harrison A. Williams Jr.’s latest bid for a new trial on his Abscam conviction has been rejected by the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The court rejected without comment arguments filed October 4. Williams, a New Jersey Democrat, has already served two-thirds of his three-year sentence for bribe-taking.
A 10-day sentence and $1,000 fine against a freelance writer was dropped today after he gave a judge his tape-recorded interview with Cathy Evelyn Smith, who is accused of killing the comedian John Belushi. Judge James Nelson of Municipal Court ruled Wednesday that the freelance writer, Christopher Van Ness, was not protected under a California law that permits the protection of news sources and unpublished materials, and ordered him jailed for contempt for refusing to surrender the tape and answer questions.
A Federal appellate court said today that beards worn by prisoners could threaten security at the Missouri State Penitentiary. The ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed a lower court’s decision that said the prison’s regulations on inmate grooming violated the religious freedom of James Hill, who is serving two consecutive life terms and two consecutive 100-year terms on four counts of first-degree murder.
Researchers said they have discovered a way to pinpoint the location of a gene believed to cause cystic fibrosis, calling the finding a giant step in the fight against one of the world’s most lethal hereditary diseases. The scientists identified a genetic marker, which they said is the first clue to locating the gene believed to cause the disease. The discovery was announced at the annual meeting of the American Society for Human Genetics held in Salt Lake City.
The commission that directs the planning for the celebration of the bicentennial of the Constitution, which has for the most part kept its planning a private matter, was sued to open its meetings to the public. The suit, filed by the Ralph Nader-founded group Public Citizen, charged that the commission, chaired by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, is a federal advisory committee and, as such, must be open to the public.
Rainstorms stretching across the central Plains pushed creeks and rivers over their banks, closing roads and stranding motorists. Meanwhile, tropical storm Isabel, its winds weakened to 45 mph, came ashore at St. Augustine, Florida. There were no reports of significant damage. A broad band of rain stretched from Oklahoma across Missouri and Illinois into lower Michigan, where flash-flood watches were posted.
Yul Brynner, the actor who this past summer completed a triumphal return engagement of his hit musical, “The King and I,” died early this morning at New York Hospital after a long bout with cancer. He was 65 years old and lived in Manhattan.
Orson Welles, the Hollywood “boy wonder” who created the film classic “Citizen Kane,” scared tens of thousands of Americans with a realistic radio report of a Martian invasion of New Jersey and changed the face of film and theater with his daring new ideas, died in Los Angeles, apparently of a heart attack. He was 70 years old and lived in Las Vegas, Nevada. An assistant coroner in Los Angeles, Donald Messerle, said Welles’s death “appears to be natural in origin.” He had been under treatment for diabetes as well as a heart ailment, his physician reported.
He was originally signed by the Boston Braves, made his major league debut as an outfielder with the Milwaukee Braves, and now Chuck Tanner will be the manager of the Atlanta Braves. That became official yesterday when Ted Turner, the Atlanta owner, signed Tanner to a five-year contract just three days after Tanner was let go by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
National League Championship Series, Game Two:
In Game 2, another Cardinal 20-game winner, Joaquín Andújar, squared off against the Dodgers’ new ace, Orel Hershiser, who had compiled a 19–3 record during the regular season and had not lost at home. After two scoreless innings, the Cardinals scored first when batting champion (and eventual National League MVP) Willie McGee singled, went to second on a walk to Tommy Herr, and scored on a wild pitch by Hershiser to give the Cardinals their first lead of the series. In the bottom of the third, Sax singled for the Dodgers. Andujar had Sax picked off first, but a throwing error allowed him to scamper all the way to third with one out. He then scored on a single by Hershiser, who would score himself on Ken Landreaux’s double. The hot-hitting Madlock then singled Landreaux home, giving the Dodgers a 3–1 lead.
In the next inning, Scioscia singled and scored on Greg Brock’s two-run home run to give the Dodgers a 5–1 lead. Next inning, the Dodgers extended their lead to 6–1 on Mike Marshall’s RBI single with two on that knocked Andujar out of the game. In the sixth, Ricky Horton allowed a two-out double and walk, then back-to-back RBI singles by Bill Madlock and Pedro Guerrero off of Bill Campbell made it 8–1 Dodgers. In the ninth, Hershiser allowed a leadoff single and walk, then two outs later, Vince Coleman’s RBI single made it 8–2 Dodgers before Willie McGee grounded out to finish Hershiser’s complete game and give the Dodgers a 2–0 series lead heading to St. Louis.
St. Louis Cardinals 2, Los Angeles Dodgers 8
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1328.07 (+1.35)
Born:
Rostislav Olesz, Czech National Team and NHL left wing and centre (Olympics, Bronze medal, 2006; Florida Panthers, Chicago Blackhawks, New Jersey Devils), in Bilovec, Czechoslovakia.
Aaron Brown, NFL running back (Detroit Lions), in Katy, Texas.
Aaron Himelstein, American actor (“Austin Powers in Goldmember”), in Buffalo Grove, Illinois.
Died:
Orson Welles, 70, American actor and director (“Citizen Kane”, “War of the Worlds”), of a heart attack.
Yul Brynner, 65, Russian-Swiss Tony and Academy Award-winning stage and screen actor (“The King and I”; “The Ten Commandments”), of lung cancer.
History Diaries 