The Eighties: Monday, October 14, 1985
Photograph: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi hold a news conference outside 10 Downing Street, London, October 14, 1985. Premier Gandhi is on an official two-day visit to London at the start of a five-nation tour. Others are unidentified. (AP Photo/Bob Dear)
Moscow’s new arms-control plan is “deeply flawed,” but there could be “real progress” in the Geneva negotiations if the Soviet side is serious, according to Secretary of State George P. Shultz. In the Administration’s most detailed appraisal of Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s arms-control plan, Mr. Shultz said it “could be a step forward” and would be responded to “positively” by the Administration, despite the “self-serving” nature of some of the proposals. With President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, due to meet in Geneva in little more than a month, Mr. Shultz seemed determined to adopt a more positive attitude toward the meeting, and not be as negative as some officials have been in the past, even though he reacted critically toward the specific Soviet proposals. At the same time, Mr. Shultz used his speech to the 31st annual meeting of lawmakers from NATO countries in San Francisco to disclose that President Reagan had made a compromise decision on Friday to settle a major dispute within the Administration over future American compliance with the 1972 treaty that limits Soviet and American missile defenses.
An earthquake struck Soviet Asia, toppling houses, sweeping away roads and taking an undisclosed toll in human lives, the Soviet press reported. The strength of the major temblor was measured at 6.1 on the Richter scale, and tremors were reported as far as 160 miles from the center. The reports placed the epicenter of the quake in Kairakkum, a town at a dam on the Syr Darya, east of Leninabad. The Soviet Government newspaper Izvestia reported that seven violent jolts had struck the area late at night, accompanied by a strong din.
Nikolai K. Baibakov, 74, the Soviet Union’s top economic planner for the last 20 years, was replaced in what was seen as another step in Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s efforts to reinvigorate the sluggish economy. Named as Baibakov’s successor was Nikolai V. Talyzin, 56, who has been the Soviet representative to Comecon, the East European trade organization. The Soviet news agency Tass said Baibakov was retired as chairman of the State Planning Commission, or Gosplan as it is known, on pension.
Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme replaced Foreign Minister Lennart Bodstroem and several other Cabinet members in a shake-up. Bodstroem had been accused by the non-Socialist opposition of taking too soft a stand on foreign submarine intrusions into Swedish waters. He was reassigned as education minister and was replaced by Sten Andersson, the minister of health and social affairs. Former industry undersecretary Roine Carlsson will replace Anders Thunborg as defense minister.
Poland announced that 78% of voters cast ballots for Parliament in Sunday’s election. This was the lowest turnout since 1947, and the banned Solidarity union, which had called for a boycott, said the voter count was even lower than reported. Turnouts since the postwar Communist takeover have approached 99%. Cardinal Jozef Glemp was in Rome on election day, and the government conceded that less than a fourth of Poland’s 20,000 priests went to the polls. Government spokesman Jerzy Urban said, however, that the voters “expressed their approval for the political policy of the state.”
A boy of 14 and a 26-year-old man have been charged with the murder of a policeman with a machete during rioting October 6 in a housing project in the Tottenham district of London. A 15-year-old is already awaiting trial in the death of officer Keith Blakelock, and five people are being questioned.
A Turk who was being tried in absentia in the Rome trial of eight men accused of conspiring to kill Pope John Paul II died in Ankara today of a heart attack, the Anatolia news agency reported. The dispatch said that the man, Bekir Celenk, had suffered a heart attack at the Mamak military prison and died on the way to the Gulhane hospital. The agency said his body was in the hospital morgue. Mr. Celenk, 51 years old, was standing trial here on charges of arms and drugs smuggling. He faced the death penalty if convicted. The court in the papal case in Rome was planning to move here this month to question Mr. Celenk and other witnesses in connection with the purported plot against the Pope.
Prime Minister Wilfried Martens today appeared certain to be asked to form another center-right coalition Government committed to economic austerity and the deployment of United States cruise missiles. Mr. Martens resigned early today, but King Baudouin asked him to stay on in a caretaker capacity. Palace officials say the King is likely to ask Mr. Martens to form a new government immediately, and dispense with the usual round of party consultations, because of the departing coalition’s clear-cut victory in elections Sunday. Mr. Martens said today that a new center-right coalition would remain committed to the severe economic policies followed in the past, as well as to the continued deployment of cruise missiles.
A Palestinian official sought by the United States in an Italian cruise ship hijacking was said by associates to have left Yugoslavia, possibly for Southern Yemen. Reagan Administration officials said Washington would continue efforts to apprehend the Palestinian leader, Mohammed Abbas, whom the White House has described as a mastermind of anti-Israeli and anti-American terrorism. Abbas, an associate of Yasser Arafat, was with the four ship hijackers Thursday night when their Egyptian airliner was diverted to Italy by American jets. The hijackers were arrested and charged with murder and kidnapping, but Mr. Abbas and an associate were allowed to leave Italy on Saturday. His departure from Yugoslavia was announced by Palestine Liberation Organization officials, as quoted by the Yugoslav press agency.
Italian magistrates said today that their investigation of four Arab militants charged with hijacking the cruise ship Achille Lauro had disclosed the possible involvement of accomplices and possible links to other recent terrorism in Italy. Dolcino Favi, the magistrate investigating the hijacking, said at a news conference in Syracuse, the Sicilian city where the four hijackers are being detained, “We assume others were involved, accomplices in Italy.” He said investigators had not been able to identify the accomplices. But magistrates in Genoa, where the Achille Lauro is scheduled to arrive late Wednesday after having been released by Egyptian officials, said that a formal arrest order had been issued for a fifth man, now in custody for suspected passport violations.
The U.N. General Assembly averted a potentially bitter confrontation and a threatened United States boycott by dropping a resolution to invite Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to the United Nations’ 40th anniversary commemoration. Mr. Arafat reserves the right, as a United Nations observer, to visit the United Nations and address this session of the Assembly or its committees on issues of “direct relevance” to him. But several diplomats from the group of nations professing nonalignment said it was understood that Mr. Arafat would not address the commemorative session. Mr. Arafat was not originally invited to attend the special 10-day commemorative session, which opened today and is expected to attract 80 heads of state and government and special envoys.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak demanded today that the United States apologize publicly for its diversion of an Egyptian airliner to Italy. The plane was carrying the four hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. Mr. Mubarak told reporters that he was still so angry about the episode that he had not read a conciliatory letter from President Reagan that an American diplomat here described Sunday as an effort to “heal the breach” in United States-Egyptian relations. “Frankly, I am very upset,” Mr. Mubarak said, speaking in English after a meeting of his National Democratic Party. Mr. Mubarak also announced that the pilot and crew of the Egyptair jetliner that was forced down would be decorated with the Collar of Valor for “gallant and heroic action.”
Syrian soldiers near the Golan Heights recently fired a shoulder-held missile at an Israeli Air Force plane and the Damascus Government then apologized for the cease-fire violation, military sources said today. The missile missed the plane. The sources said Syrian authorities explained to United Nations observers that the attack was ordered by a junior area commander and did not reflect Syrian policy. The attack was said to have occurred several days ago near the Golan Heights, where Israeli and Syrian troops face each other across a buffer zone patrolled by United Nations soldiers.
General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq called off a scheduled visit to West Germany today as opposition mounted to a bill meant to pardon him for the last eight years of martial law rule. General Zia President of Pakistan, had to postpone the October 16 to 19 visit “due to his commitments in the country,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Assembly opposition to the bill, which would protect General Zia against possible charges of treason and write his martial law orders into the constitution, forced Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo last week to cancel a trip to China. The assembly, which was elected last February, is expected to pass the bill and restore banned political parties before December 31, the date for a planned transition from army to civilian rule.
Japan’s Government today adopted a variety of incentives to stimulate the nation’s economic growth rate. The United States has long urged Tokyo to spur its economy as one way of curbing its large trade and capital surpluses, and the issue gained momentum at the recent meeting of Japan and four other leading industrial nations where Japan in particular pledged to stimulate its economy. The Government estimated that the measures it adopted could increase imports by $2 billion in the next year. The package should add 1.27 percentage points to Japan’s growth rate, officials of the Foreign Ministry said. But some economists here questioned that prospect, before having seen the final package.
Vice President George Bush assured China that the Administration will resist protectionist pressures in Congress aimed at slashing textile imports, U.S. officials said. Bush, on the second day of a six-day visit to China, held seven hours of talks with officials including Premier Zhao Ziyang and Communist Party chief Hu Yaobang. U.S. officials played down China’s longstanding objections to U.S. military aid to Taiwan. However, Zhao told Bush that Taiwan is “the major obstacle to Sino-U.S. relations.”
President Reagan has sent Senator Paul Laxalt (R-Nevada) to Manila to speak with Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos in the wake of reports of a worsening security situation, the White House said. A presidential spokesman declined to give the purpose of the mission, but the Washington Times said it was to express concern over threats to U.S. interests there, which include two military bases. Marcos is confronted by a growing Communist insurgency.
A St. Lawrence Seaway lock caved in, blocking passage from Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron and Erie into Lake Ontario and on to the Atlantic Ocean. A 125-foot section of the wall of Lock No. 7 in the Welland Canal collapsed near Welland, Canada, trapping a ship, the Panamanian-registered Furia. Efforts were being made to fill the lock with water in the hope of freeing the vessel. No injuries were reported, and officials could not estimate how long the seaway will be closed. However, any delays are expected to prove expensive.
President Jose Napoleon Duarte sent three of his daughters and their four children out of the country today on a United States Air Force plane. Looking gaunt and tired, he told reporters at the Ilopango air base that he had become concerned for his family’s safety after the kidnapping of his eldest daughter, Ines Guadalupe Duarte, by leftist rebels five weeks ago. He added that one of his daughters was followed by a strange car today and that he had received a threatening telephone call as well.
A Panamanian soldier assigned to guard the Chilean Embassy today shot to death one diplomat and seriously wounded another, then shot himself in the head, Government sources and news agencies reported. A Foreign Ministry source identified the soldier as Demetrio Rios and said he “apparently went berserk.” In Chile, the Foreign Ministry said the guard entered the building “and started to shoot,” killing Raimundo Barros, 30 years old, a second secretary, and seriously wounding Miguel Angel Gonzalez, 30, a third secretary. News reports in Panama said the soldier had been shot, but did not say by whom. A well-placed source in the National Defense Forces, Panama’s combined police and military, said the soldier “went crazy and started shooting.”
A white soldier was killed by anti-apartheid rioters in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, the authorities announced. It was the first reported killing of a soldier on duty in the township violence that has claimed more than 750 lives in 13 months. According to the police, the soldier, Corporal Johan Schoeman, 19 years old, was stabbed to death on Sunday in the black township of Kwazakele, near Port Elizabeth, after a group threw stones at a vehicle in which he and other members of the South African Defense Force were riding.
Blacks’ approval of the President has increased significantly since he took office, according to polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News. This year 28 percent of blacks said they approved of Mr. Reagan’s performance, up from 10 percent in 1982, although 60 percent of blacks still disapprove of the way he is handling his job.
The President and Mrs. Reagan returned to the White House after a weekend at Camp David.
Negotiators reported little progress today in contract talks between the Chrysler Corporation and the United Automobile Workers, with the strike deadline little more than a day away. Union officials said the company had not moved away from last week’s initial offer, which was labeled “woefully inadequate” by the union. “If things don’t start moving soon, we’re not going to get done in time” to avert a strike, a union official said today.
An undetermined amount of nitrosylsulfuric acid leaked from a trailer in a truck depot near Parkersburg, West Virginia, injuring at least seven people and forcing crews wearing protective gear and breathing apparatus to evacuate 400 to 500 people living within half a mile of the depot, Wood County officials said. The acid can burn skin and eyes and may be harmful if inhaled. The trailer was thought to be owned by Du Pont Corp.
A tube that drains non-radioactive steam from the turbine system at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant at Middletown, Pennsylvania, keeps springing leaks, a TMI spokesman said. Problems with the three-quarter inch metal tube that takes the steam from a line coming out of the reactor’s turbine unit began Saturday morning as workers were repairing a leak, said TMI spokesman Gordon Tomb. TMI officials lowered power to 5% and replaced the entire line. After the reactor returned to about 28% power, another leak was found Monday at a welding point on the line.
Thirty-eight percent of college teachers surveyed by the Carnegie Foundation said they are thinking of leaving the profession within five years. Ernest L. Boyer, president of the foundation, based at Princeton University, said Monday the survey indicates that faculty members are also troubled about the quality of the students. Twenty-one percent of teachers said they would not choose teaching if they could start over.
The cause may lie in tolerance that is a Philadelphia tradition, or in what some see as civic complacency. Or it may lie in the fact that many Philadelphians have already made up their minds about the case, or view it as an accident that affected only a minuscule corner of the city. Or in the dampening of awareness and debate in the city’s five-week-old newspaper strike. Whatever the reason, although long-awaited hearings began last week on the bombing by the police of the headquarters of a the radical group Move, the affair itself “is no longer the No. 1 issue facing Philadelphia in the minds of the vast majority of its residents,” says Stephen Teichner, a Philadelphia poll taker.
The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News made a new wage offer to 4,700 striking employees, sparking hope that the 38-day-old walkout would end soon. “We’re delighted to be talking again,” said Stuart Bykofsky, a spokesman for the Newspaper Guild, which represents editorial and business employees. No details of the wage proposals were released. Earlier, the company had offered a pay and benefits raise of $133 weekly over a four-year contract. The union had proposed a $145 weekly pay and benefits boost over 37 months.
A convicted murderer, William Vandiver, refuses to appeal his execution set for Wednesday and is frustrating civil rights groups that need his consent to fight for a reprieve, a lawyer said today. Henry Schwarzchild of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project said in New York that his organization had not found a way to stay the electrocution. Mr. Vandiver was convicted in the March 1983 fatal stabbing and dismembering of his father-in-law, Paul Komyatti Sr., 65, of Hammond, Indiana.
The Supreme Court, voting 9 to 0, today ordered Georgia authorities to postpone an execution scheduled for Tuesday until a formal appeal could be filed in behalf of Jerome Bowden, who was convicted of killing a woman in 1976. Lawyers for Mr. Bowden said he was not given a fair trial because he was denied the opportunity to hire, at state expense, a psychiatrist to help develop his assertion of mental incompetence.
A federal judge rejected a request today to halt the start of classes at the Rhode Island State Police Academy, where an all-white class prompted charges of racism and nepotism. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, representing four minority candidates who were rejected by the academy, had urged Federal District Judge Bruce M. Selya to issue a temporary restraining order. The state said the recruits were rejected for valid reasons. The force of 151 state troopers includes one woman and two black men. The new class has 21 recruits, including four women. Five recruits are related to present or former troopers, the N.A.A.C.P. asserted.
A defrocked Louisiana Roman Catholic priest who had admitted having sex with dozens of boys pleaded guilty today to pornography involving children and other charges and was sentenced to 20 years at hard labor. The plea, part of an agreement with prosecutors, came as trial was to open for the former priest, Gilbert Gauthe. As part of the bargain, prosecutors dropped a charge of aggravated rape that carried a mandatory life sentence.
The Nazi-like group called the Order, which plotted and waged a racist war, was racked by internal dissension and members who talked too much, according to testimony in the trial of members of the group on racketeering charges. So far, more than 75 witnesses have testified in the five-week trial, which is expected to last at least until Thanksgiving. The witnesses have included four former members of the Order who turned Government evidence. They have told the all-white jury in Federal District Court here how the group plotted robberies, assassinations and other crimes as it worked for a racist, anti-Semitic overthrow of the government.
The 24 rats that rode into space on the shuttle Challenger last April suffered dramatic reductions in the release of growth hormone in their pituitary glands, a finding that could signal a serious problem for astronauts, said researcher Wesley Hymer, a biochemist at Pennsylvania State University at State College, Pennsylvania.
A Montgomery County, Maryland, judge granted a divorce to the wife of former Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement director John M. Fedders, on grounds that Fedders was cruel during the 19-year marriage. Circuit Court Judge James S. McAuliffe awarded Charlotte Fedders use of the couple’s home, custody of their five children and $1,500 a month in support. Fedders separated from his wife in 1983. Their case gained national attention last February when newspapers published details of the stormy marriage. He resigned his SEC post three weeks later and was hired by a law firm.
A record power supply accord was signed in Montreal. Officials representing Hydro-Quebec and a consortium of 92 New England utilities signed an agreement for the Americans to import enough hydroelectric power in the 1990’s to serve more than a million typical homes at an expected saving to consumers of about $1 billion.
The 1985 Nobel Prize in medicine was won by two Americans, Michael S. Brown and Joseph L. Goldstein of the University of Texas. The scientists found that human body cells have receptors on their surfaces that trap and absorb cholesterol-containing particles in the bloodstream. The Nobel committee called this discovery a milestone, leading to a new understanding of how excessive levels of fatty cholesterol accumulate to clog human arteries and cause strokes and heart attacks.
After J. Edgar Hoover objected that a 1962 Walt Disney Productions film depicted agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as bumblers, the film company changed their designation to “Federal security agents,” The Arizona Republic reported today. The newspaper, which said it had obtained a file the bureau kept on the studio founder, Walt Disney, reported that Hoover directed his chief agent in Los Angeles to meet with Disney and tell him that “the bureau will strongly object to any portrayal of the F.B.I. in this film.” Movie reviewers at the time commented that the film, “Moon Pilot,” leveled a “humorous rifle” at the bureau depicting it “as a mass of dolts.”
National League Championship Series, Game Five:
High drama unfolded when the Dodgers and Cardinals met for Game 5 tied at two victories apiece. The Dodgers sent Valenzuela for his second start of the series against the Cardinals’ number four starter, Bob Forsch. Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog felt comfortable starting Forsch to give extra rest to his pair of 20-game winners, Andujar and Tudor. Prior to the game, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda declared, “If they can beat Valenzuela and Hershiser, then we’re not as good as we thought.” Dodger/NBC announcer Vin Scully repeated this several times during the broadcasts of Games 5 and 6.
As in Games 3 and 4, the Cardinals got the ball rolling quickly. McGee and Smith led off with walks, and then Herr doubled, scoring both runners. At second with nobody out, the Dodgers—for the fifth time in the series—picked a runner off base, Herr in this case, only to see him advance on a throwing error by Valenzuela. With Herr at third and nobody out, Valenzuela masterfully got out of the jam with no further damage, and the Cardinals led, 2–0.
In the fourth inning, Landreaux singled and Madlock homered for the second time in the series to tie the game at two. Ken Dayley replaced Forsch and got out of a two on and nobody out jam. And that ended the scoring until the ninth.
Tom Niedenfuer came in to hold the Cardinals at bay in the ninth. After inducing McGee to pop up to third, Ozzie Smith (who had hit only 13 career home runs up to that point) came to bat from the left side of the plate. Never before in his career had Smith homered from the left side—until now. He golfed a Niedenfuer fastball down the right field line and over the fence for a home run, ending Game 5 as a 3–2 Cardinal victory. The ball hit the front facing of the lower deck and bounded back onto the field, but it was clearly above the home run line and Smith scored the winning run. Reliever Jeff Lahti got the win and Niedenfuer took the loss. The home run was voted the greatest moment in the history of Busch Stadium in 2005, and was the source of Jack Buck’s famous call “Go crazy, folks! Go crazy!”.
This was the game where a fan blew water from the top of the visitors dugout into the eyes of Steve Sax as he came back after making an out. Sax attempted to enter the stands but was halted by security. Sax later pointed out that the water was mixed with beer and hurt him. The fan was evicted by security with no further incident.
Los Angeles Dodgers 2, St. Louis Cardinals 3
NFL Monday Night Football:
Mark Gastineau sounded like a farmer whose crop had just come in. “You plant the seed and hope it takes,” said the New York Jets defensive end after his team’s masterful performance in a 23–7 National Football League victory over the befuddled Miami Dolphins Monday night. The triumph, New York’s fifth in a row, lifted the Jets atop the AFC East with a 5–1 mark. It was built on a staunch defense that held Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino to only 136 yards passing — his lowest total ever as a starting quarterback — and the superb running of Freeman McNeil. McNeil took over the NFL rushing leadership with 645 yards after collecting 173 yards on 28 attempts Monday night. His running and the pin-point passing of Ken O’Brien allowed New York to control the ball for more than 37 minutes against a Miami team that had won seven straight games against the Jets. O’Brien, the third-year quarterback, had another strong game, taking command of the team from the first play and completing 18 of 28 passes for 239 yards and a touchdown.
Swarming over receivers and pressuring Dan Marino, the Jets’ defense was the most effective unit on the field for most of the game. Marino was sacked once by Barry Bennett and was constantly hounded by Mark Gastineau as he looked downfield for receivers who were often tightly covered by the Jets’ secondary. On their first drive, the Jets got close enough for a 47-yard field-goal attempt by Pat Leahy. It was blocked, but the drive showed the Jets could move. Leahy had three more chances and converted them all. His third came at a critical point in the game — after the Dolphins scored their touchdown in the third quarter. That cut the Jets’ edge to 13–7 and could have started the rally that Marino has created so often. Instead, O’Brien led the Jets on a 79-yard drive that led to an 18-yarder by Leahy and a 16–7 edge.
Miami Dolphins 7, New York Jets 23
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1354.73 (+14.79)
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