The Chief of the Soviet General Staff, Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev, in an article to be published Saturday in Pravda, calls recent Reagan Administration interpretations of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty a “deliberate deceit.” In the Soviet Union’s first high-level response to recent White House assertions that the treaty does not prohibit the development of defensive weapons in space, Marshal Akhromeyev said the United States was “distorting the essence” of the agreement. Tass, the official Soviet press agency, published an advance text of Marshal Akhromeyev’s article tonight. The question of whether the ABM treaty bars research, development and testing of a space-based missile defense has become a central issue as the summit meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, approaches. There has also been disagreement in the Administration over the extent to which the treaty limits development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, the American antimissile program popularly called “Star Wars.”
Secretary of State George P. Shultz and the Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, are expected to meet in New York next Friday to discuss the remaining matters holding up a new cultural exchange accord and other issues on the agenda of the summit meeting in Geneva next month, State Department officials said today. The officials said that the exact time of the session with Mr. Shevardnadze was being worked out and that an announcement was expected shortly. The Soviet Foreign Minister, who met with President Reagan and Mr. Shultz last month, will be in New York to lead the Soviet delegation to the special ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of the United Nations.
Irina Grivnina, a political dissident who served several years in internal exile in the Soviet Union for publicizing accounts of what she said were Soviet abuses of psychiatry for political ends, has been told she must leave Russia before October 30, according to executives of private human rights organizations. Mrs. Grivnina, 40 years old, and her husband, Vladimir Neplekhovich, who rights groups assert have been the subjects of Government harassment in recent years, were told by Soviet emigration authorities in Moscow on Thursday that they had been stripped of their citizenship and must leave the country. Mrs. Grivnina is a former computer programmer. Robert van Voren of the Bukovsky Foundation, a rights group in Amsterdam, in a phone interview yesterday, said Mrs. Grivnina called him Thursday with the information.
President Reagan attends a National Security Council meeting to discuss the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction talks in Vienna, Austria.
A clandestine Solidarity leader has challenged Polish Government voting figures on parliamentary elections, saying that 40 percent of the electorate heeded the underground’s call for a boycott. The man, Zbigniew Bujak, fugitive leader of the clandestine wing of the outlawed trade union movement, made the assertion to a group of Western correspondents on Thursday night. He said the results of the elections last Sunday, as reported and tabulated by 6,000 underground activists, represented “a moderate victory for Solidarity.” Mr. Bujak, a 31-year-old former chemical plant worker, has eluded the police since martial law was declared almost four years ago. Martial law was officially ended in July 1983.
A confrontation between Italian soldiers and American Special Forces last week over who would take custody of the Achille Lauro hijackers ended only after President Reagan sent word for the Americans to back down, Administration officials said today. The disclosures about the confrontation at Sigonella Air Base in Sicily appeared to contradict initial Administration contentions that the capture of the hijackers had been carried out with warm cooperation between Italian and American forces. The version emerging from interviews with American officials confirmed many of the details provided by Prime Minister Bettino Craxi of Italy as he resigned Thursday, defending his Government’s conduct in the affair. American officials this week issued their first accounts of the incident, saying it had continued for several hours on the air base runway after American Navy pilots forced down an Egyptian airliner. They said the Italian soldiers and American Special Forces troops had faced off on the runway while their senior officers argued over which country would take custody of the airliner and the hijackers.
As Italian prosecutors continued their investigation into the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, a waiter on the ship was quoted today as saying he and the ship’s barber were forced by hijackers to throw the blood-drenched body of Leon Klinghoffer into the sea. The account confirmed information offered Wednesday in Jerusalem by Israeli intelligence sources, who added that they had learned that the youngest of the four gunmen had shot Mr. Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old passenger from New York who was confined to a wheelchair. Speaking in Genoa, the waiter, Joaquim Pinheiro Da Silva, who is Portuguese, told reporters that two of the four hijackers pointed a machine gun at his back and ordered him and the barber, Ferruccio Alberti, to toss Mr. Klinghoffer’s body overboard.
President Reagan tonight sent a special representative to Italy, Tunisia and Egypt in an effort to ease tensions with those countries, Administration officials said. The envoy, John C. Whitehead, Deputy Secretary of State, was carrying messages from Mr. Reagan to the leaders of each country in an effort to rebuild confidence, the officials said. The disputes with Egypt and Italy arose after the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, in which a 69-year-old passenger, Leon Klinghoffer of New York, was slain. The State Department tonight confirmed Mr. Whitehead’s visit to Italy and Egypt. Because of the sensitive nature of relations with Tunisia, there was no announcement of the stop in Tunis.
With Britain and most of the other members of the Commonwealth still at odds over the issue of sanctions against South Africa, Canada and Australia appeared today to be emerging as brokers for a compromise. The Prime Ministers of the two countries and their staffs have been meeting late into the night here with colleagues from Britain, which opposes sanctions, and from most of the other Commonwealth countries, which favor sanctions, in search of some middle ground.
A bomb exploded in a parked van outside a Londonderry, Northern Ireland, shopping center tonight, wounding 30 people and causing extensive damage, the police said. The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the bombing in a message to news organizations. The police in Londonderry had begun clearing the area after an anonymous telephone call warned that a bomb would explode. Three of the wounded were policemen, the police said.
Pope John Paul II today described the global debt crisis as an “ethical and humanitarian” issue and called on the United Nations to play a “front line” role in the effort to find solutions. In a strongly worded message read to the General Assembly by the Vatican Secretary of State, Agostino Cardinal Casaroli, the Pope singled out the indebtedness problem for attention. The problem, he said, has brought “whole countries to the brink of breakdown.” Neither debtor nor creditor nations “have anything to gain from the development of situations of despair that would be uncontrollable” because of the debt, he added.
Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel praised King Hussein of Jordan today, saying the King had sincerely tried to lead the Palestine Liberation Organization away from terrorism and toward peace. In some of the warmest remarks any Israeli leader has made about the Jordanian, Mr. Peres expressed the hope that King Hussein would move without the P.L.O. to enter direct negotiations with Israel. He added that Israel would withdraw its opposition to United States sales of arms to Jordan if peace were achieved. In an address and news conference before flying to New York, the Prime Minister also said he saw no prospect that the Soviet Union would soon re-establish diplomatic relations with Israel. He interpreted a recent decision by Poland to exchange diplomatic interest sections with Israel as indicating a Soviet interest in having more representation in Israel. Rumania is the only East European country with an embassy in Tel Aviv.
An Israeli tour guide was stabbed and wounded today while showing three Danish tourists around ancient ruins in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Israeli Army spokesman announced. The incident appeared to be the latest in a series of stabbings and shootings by Palestinian Arabs against Israeli Jews in Israel and the occupied territories.
Syria and its allies in Lebanon have decided to step up their efforts to secure the release of three Soviet Embassy men who were kidnapped in West Beirut on October 1. A fourth Russian who was abducted was found slain two days later. A joint Syrian-Lebanese committee was formed Thursday after talks in Damascus between Syria’s First Vice President, Abdel Halim Khaddam, and leaders of the Lebanese National Union Front, according to reports in the press here today. The Beirut daily As Safir, a newspaper close to Damascus, reported that Mr. Khaddam had chided Lebanese leaders not only for failing to prevent the abduction but also for their inability after 17 days to find and free the Russians.
The first evidence that an Air-India jumbo jet may have been destroyed by a bomb has been detected on a fragment of the fuselage brought up by a salvage ship, an American official said yesterday. The Boeing 747 crashed into the sea off Ireland last June 23, killing all 329 people aboard. Holes apparently caused by objects that pierced the skin of the plane from the inside have been found in a piece of belly skin from the forward cargo area, according to an official from the National Transportation Safety Board. Asked if this was proof that the plane had been blown up, the safety board official said the evidence was preliminary, but acknowledged that it pointed in the direction of a bomb.
Vice President Bush concluded a tour of China today with a call to the Soviet Union to adopt economic changes similar to those that have been proclaimed in China. “I’ll be honest with you, I’d like to see the Soviets do the same sort of thing, because I think it would be a moderating force,” Mr. Bush said. He was referring to China’s policies of introducing incentives, competition and foreign investment. The changes in Chinese society that the recent economic policies have produced were a major theme of virtually all the Vice President’s speeches in his six-day trip, which ended today with a visit to the Special Economic Zone established here at Shenzhen, which is adjacent to Hong Kong.
The Philippines’ President rejected a plea by the Reagan Administration for major political, economic and military changes to avert further turmoil in his country, Administration officials said. The Administration’s views were presented to President Ferdinand E. Marcos in Manila by Senator Paul Laxalt, President Reagan’s personal envoy. Mr. Laxalt requested a meeting with Mr. Reagan “as soon as possible” when he returned to Washington Thursday night, a White House official said. A White House official said President Reagan would probably meet Mr. Laxalt on Monday or Tuesday.
Interior Minister Tomas Borge said Thursday night that security agents had captured five people who he said planned to carry out terrorist bombings here. Mr. Borge said the four men and one woman were acting under orders from the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the main anti-Sandinista insurgent group. A spokesman for the Democratic Force, Vosco Matamoros, said in a telephone interview from Washington that the five people arrested in Managua had no connection with his group and that the group had made no plans to bomb buildings. “We do not practice urban terror,” Mr. Matamoros said. Speaking to an assembly of Interior Ministry officials, Mr. Borge said the discovery of the bomb plots proved that the Government was justified in announcing earlier this week that many public liberties would be suspended.
Despite international appeals for clemency, a black supporter of the outlawed African National Congress was hanged today in Pretoria for his role in the 1982 murder of a security policeman. The execution of the black activist, Benjamin Moloise, 30 years old, set off rioting by hundreds of blacks in downtown Johannesburg. Two white policemen were stabbed, a black man was shot by security forces and at least eight white pedestrians were beaten on the city streets. President P. W. Botha had received appeals from around the world to commute the execution, including appeals from the United States, the Commonwealth, the European Economic Community and the United Nations. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution last year calling on the South African authorities not to execute Mr. Moloise. In Washington, a State Department spokesman said, “We have made plain our opinion that clemency in this case was justified.” At the United Nations, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar deplored the hanging, and the Organization of African Unity denounced what it called the South African Government’s “act of barbarism.” Mr. Moloise’s lawyers had asked that the case be reopened because of new evidence that they said would have led to commutation of the sentence. Mr. Moloise was sentenced to death in September 1983 for the murder of the security policeman 10 months earlier.
The Defense Department has decided to screen all 2.1 million military personnel for infection by the virus that can cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, a Pentagon official said today. Those who are found to have the AIDS disease itself will be treated and counseled and will receive medical discharges under honorable conditions, the official said. Any men or women who have been infected with the virus but do not show signs of disease will be retained in the armed forces but will probably have their duties and geographical assignments limited under procedures to be worked out by the Army, Navy and Air Force, the official added. Pentagon officials cited several reasons for moving faster and further than civilian agencies to detect and restrict infected individuals. They said the Army, in particular, argued that it must be able to deploy personnel anywhere in the world on short notice, without worrying about soldiers being weakened by the AIDS virus.
President Reagan meets with board members of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation to discuss choosing an architect for the Library.
The Reagan Administration today threatened a veto of the Senate’s deficit-reducing bill for 1986 because it includes a permanent extension of the cigarette tax at 16 cents a pack. The Administration said it also opposed the bill because of two other tax measures, some changes in Medicare and Medicaid regulations that would lead to increased costs, and an increase in payments to several states from receipts for offshore oil and gas leases. The Administration also argued that the Senate overestimated the savings its bill would achieve. The veto threat, made in a letter from Donald T. Regan, the White House chief of staff, to Bob Dole of Kansas, the Senate majority leader, could complicate efforts to make the savings promised in the Congressional budget plan for this year.
Democrats moved to expand the role of elected officials and party leaders in the Presidential nominating process. The party’s Fairness Commission proposed the creation of more than 200 new national delegate slots for Democratic governors, members of Congress and members of the party’s national committee. The commission also moved to allow Wisconsin Democrats to conform to that state’s primary system, in which all voters, regardless of party affiliation, are allowed to participate in any party’s primary.
The case of Richard W. Miller, the former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation charged with espionage, went to the jury today. The jury deliberated for two hours and then adjourned for the weekend. Deliberations are to resume Monday. In his instructions to the jurors, Federal District Judge David Kenyon added a stern admonition not to communicate anything about their deliberations to the bailiffs guarding them. His remarks were apparently motivated by allegations of jury tampering in the trial of Mayor Roger Hedgecock of San Diego. Two jurors in that case have accused a bailiff of improperly advising the jury.
The costliest judicial election in the nation’s history is shaping up in California. The contest centers on the State Supreme Court and the effort by conservative Republicans to force from office Chief Justice Elizabeth Bird, a liberal Democrat, and two other Justices. Television commercials, bumper stickers and rival teams of professional campaign consultants are being assembled in California for what is widely expected to be the costliest judicial election in the nation’s history. According to some legal scholars, the election in which three State Supreme Court justices here are trying to keep their jobs, has emerged as the most visible example of a trend in the American justice system: Campaigns for seats on state courts are becoming increasingly expensive and contentious.
The Police Commissioner in Philadelphia acknowledged today that he had asked fire officials to allow flames to rage unimpeded on the roof of a house that he knew was occupied by members of the radical group Move and their children. The Commissioner, Gregore J. Sambor, said he wanted the fire, which erupted after the police dropped a bomb on the Move house May 13, to destroy a steel-reinforced bunker on the roof so Move members would not have a protected perch from which to shoot. “I wanted to get rid of the bunker,” Mr. Sambor told a panel investigating the confrontation. “I wanted to have the tactical superiority without sacrificing lives.”
San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock today postponed his decision on resigning, saying that reports of jury tampering might have tainted his conviction last week for violating the law on campaign gifts. Mr. Hedgecock appeared at a news conference this afternoon 30 minutes before he was to have officially resigned as Mayor of the nation’s eighth-largest city. “The sudden and fully unexpected turn of events has forced me to reconsider my decision to resign as Mayor,” he said. “I resigned on the basis of a valid verdict. If there is no valid verdict, there is no basis for resignation.”
A spokesman for the nuclear reactor under construction at Seabrook, New Hampshire, where 2,000 workers are conducting a wildcat strike over work conditions and layoffs, said today that some of the 400 laborers on the second shift began reporting for work after a judge issued a contempt order against them. “They’re coming in in better numbers than they did this week,” said John Kyte, the management spokesman, adding that the company would take no action against workers who did not show up tonight. Federal District Judge James Watson ordered the workers to end the strike or face fines or imprisonment. He set a hearing for Monday to determine compliance with the order.
Talks on a new contract between the striking United Automobile Workers and the Chrysler Corporation broke off for the weekend late this afternoon. Owen F. Bieber, president of the union, said both sides were “still far apart on a number of key issues,” including profit sharing and job security, despite two and a half days of intensive bargaining since the strike beagan early Wednesday. Mr. Bieber said he and other union officials would attend a previously scheduled meeting of the union’s Chrysler Council on Saturday in Huntsville, Alabama, to make a report on the status of the talks.
Teamsters today rejected a tentative contract settlement with The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, sending this city’s 42-day-old newspaper strike into its seventh week. By dawn, after all-night talks in some cases, all nine striking unions had signed tentative agreements with Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., ending four days in which a settlement had seemed imminent. The newspapers’ management had made detailed plans to produce a largely complete issue of The Inquirer on Sunday, and its staff members were to be have been called back to work late this afternoon, once the nine unions’ members ratified the new agreements.
Three European scientists and five American astronauts finished a dress rehearsal today of the countdown for a West German science mission that begins October 30 aboard the space shuttle Challenger. The mission will cost $180 million, of which the Germans are paying $64 million for the use of the Challenger laboratory. There are 70 experiments on board, three-quarters of them related to metallurgy.
A 51-year-old, fair-skinned woman may not change the racial classification on her birth certificate to “white” from “colored” because she did not offer sufficient proof of her race, a Louisiana appellate court ruled today. “We’re going to appeal it, of course,” said Brian Begue, attorney for the plaintiff, Susie Guillory Phipps.
A new type of artificial heart, designed to reduce the occurrence of blood clots, was implanted in in a dying 44-year-old Philadelphia man at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was reported in critical but stable condition. The experimental temporary device has several features designed to reduce the likelihood of blood clots that have occurred in patients who received the Jarvik-7 artificial heart used in previous transplant patients.
A genetic-engineered hormone has been approved for crucial treatment of children with severe growth problems at a time when use of the natural human hormone has been suspended because it was suspected that some batches might have been dangerously contaminated. The manufactured hormone is only the second drug made by gene-splicing methods to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human use. The first was a version of human insulin. Toilets and sanitation for field hands are to be provided by farmers if states set up standards under Federal guidelines issued by Labor Secretary Bill Brock. The states would have 18 months to adopt their own standards under Mr. Brock’s guidelines.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1368.84 (-0.45)
Born:
Yoenis Céspedes, Cuban MLB outfielder (All-Star 2014, 2016; Oakland A’s, Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, New York Mets), in Campechuela, Cuba.
Died:
Benjamin Moloisi, 30, South African poet and member of the African National Congress, is hanged.
History Diaries 