U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time Summit talks began in a good mood, according to spokesmen for President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The first American-Soviet summit sessions in six years lasted more than four hours, with half the time spent alone by the two leaders, with only interpreters present. President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev discuss issues such as National feelings, Strategic Defense Initiative, and future relations. Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said that the long private conversations had been unexpected and that they contributed “to our overall good feeling about the meetings.” Another White House official had said Monday that the amount of time Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev spent alone would be a good indicator of how things were going. The longer the private meetings, the official said, the greater the prospects of progress. When Vladimir B. Lomeiko, a Soviet spokesman, was asked at a briefing whether he was encouraged by the length of the private talks, he said, “I believe this meeting and its outcome will provide you with an answer.” But earlier Mr. Gorbachev himself had been overheard saying “yes” to the same question by some reporters.
Between sessions with President Reagan today, Mikhail S. Gorbachev spent 45 minutes in a stand-up, impromptu discussion with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who twice pressed him on the predicament of Soviet Jews. The face-to-face encounter, which took place in a crowded lobby at the Soviet Mission, had little of the adversarial quality of Richard M. Nixon’s “kitchen debate” with Nikita S. Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959. But the encounter was just as spontaneous and nearly as public. Less than an arm’s length apart, the two men stood in the center of a tight circle made up of American antiwar activists, high-ranking Soviet officials, security men, television crews and a handful of reporters. Mr. Jackson, who is here on behalf of a coalition of groups that collected more than a million signatures on petitions calling for a ban on nuclear tests, initially expected to make his points to Mr. Gorbachev in private. For his part, the Soviet leader apparently expected a brief handshaking session before the cameras and an exchange of generalities about peace that, some here suggested, might have been sought for the evening television news in Moscow. Mr. Gorbachev looked him squarely in the eye, with no hint of tension, and addressed the issue the second time Mr. Jackson raised it. Later, he termed Mr. Gorbachev a “master communicator.”
Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev discussed their husbands, their countries and hopes for “better understanding” for 75 minutes. Over almond herbal tea and freshly baked cookies, Nancy Reagan and Raisa M. Gorbachev today discussed their husbands, their countries and the prospects for “better understanding.” “I found her a very nice lady,” Mrs. Reagan said with a smile, moments after Mrs. Gorbachev left the Maison de Saussure, the 18th-century gray stone chateau where the Reagans are staying. “What her husband wanted, what my husband wanted, is the same — a better understanding.” The 75-minute meeting was the first between the First Ladies of the United States and the Soviet Union since June 1974, when Pat Nixon met Viktoriya P. Brezhnev.
Israeli fighter jets shot down two Syrian MIG-23’s over Syria today as the Syrian planes tried to approach the Israeli aircraft, the commander of the Israeli Air Force said. The commander, Maj. Gen. Amos Lapidot, said in an Israel radio interview that the Israeli planes were flying a photography mission over Lebanon when two Syrian MIG-23S’s, an advanced version of the MIG-23, started heading toward them from inside Syrian territory. Other Israeli fighters flying cover for their reconnaissance planes chased away the Syrian MIG’s and then shot them down with air-to-air missiles while both the Israeli and Syrian jets were over Syria. The Syrians apparently never fired a shot, Israeli military sources said.
Italians identified 16 Palestinians who they said were wanted for the hijacking of the cruise liner Achille Lauro. The list, made public in Genoa, was headed by a Palestine Liberation Front leader, Mohammed Abbas, and revealed a wider plot than previously thought. International arrest warrants have been issued in Italy for Palestinian faction leader Abul Abbas and several of his top aides, charging them with murder and kidnapping in the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. At a news briefing in Genoa, a deputy prosecutor, Luigi Carli, said that one of the four accused hijackers, Youssef Molki, has admitted killing American passenger Leon Klinghoffer.
The Athens policeman suspected of shooting to death a teen-ager, sparking riots by thousands of youths in the Greek capital and three other cities, was charged with manslaughter. Athanasios Melistas, 27, was also charged with illegal use of firearms in the killing of Michael Kaltezas, who was shot in the head while throwing firebombs at a police bus. Meanwhile, the two-day occupation of the Athens Polytechnic Institute as thousands of demonstrators joined in an anti-government march.
Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez affirmed today that Spain would continue to press for a reduction in the number of American troops stationed here. The issue, which has figured in talks between Madrid and Washington, has grown more sensitive recently as Spanish and American officials have given different accounts of the talks. They also disagree on whether the talks constitute formal negotiations. Mr. Gonzalez, speaking in an hourlong interview here, suggested that American officials might not be clear about Spain’s determination to seek the troop cuts.
West Germany decided not to impose speed limits on the autobahns, infuriating environmentalists and delighting drivers of fast cars. The decision, announced after a meeting of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Cabinet, followed publication of a report concluding that a 100 kilometer-an-hour speed limit (62.5 mph) would do little to reduce the air pollution blamed for killing West German forests. The report also found that seven of 10 drivers would probably ignore the limit if there was one.
Martial law was ended today in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, almost seven years after it was declared, the authorities announced. It was also lifted in 8 of Turkey’s 67 provinces, leaving 9 still under military rule. The nine are southeastern and eastern provinces where Kurdish separatists have been fighting security forces for more than a year. The provinces where martial law was lifted will be placed under emergency rule for four months. State of emergency rule differs from martial law in that emergency powers are assumed by civilian provincial governors and not by military commanders. Under martial law in Turkey, the press is censored, demonstrations and union activity are illegal and police can arrest suspects without warrants.
The Soviet Union has begun a campaign to reassure the Arabs that Mikhail S. Gorbachev will not conclude a deal with President Reagan at Arab expense. An article by the Soviet press agency Novosti, distributed here in Arabic Monday night, dismissed as “fabrications” and “lies” claims that Arab interests would be compromised at Geneva. The Soviet Union, it said, is “fully committed” to safeguarding “the interests of its Arab friends.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s special Beirut envoy, Terry Waite, said the time is ripe “for a major move forward” in negotiations with the kidnappers of American hostages. Returning to Lebanon from London, where he met with U.S. officials, Waite said he is now hopeful that progress can be made. He talked with the kidnappers last week. “I have very important things to say to them,” he said, without giving details of what proposals he might offer to the Americans’ captors. “. . . I believe that last time was a good step forward. I think now it’s possible to take another step forward.”
Iraqi warplanes raided Iran’s main oil terminal at Kharg Island on Monday, damaging a pipeline serving a main loading jetty and hitting a tanker, shipping sources said today. Norwegian shipping sources in Oslo said the tanker Castor, registered in Liberia, was hit in the engine room by an Iraqi missile. None of the 25 crew members were hurt, and the sources said damage to the Castor was not serious. Iraq, at war with Iran for five years, said Monday that its planes had raided Kharg for the 40th time since mid-August and hit a “large naval target” — normally a reference to a tanker — near the Iranian coast.
Soviet forces in Afghanistan shelled a mosque in the city of Herat, killing at least 20 people, and Afghan rebels shot down and apparently captured a Soviet air force general, Western diplomats said in New Delhi. The diplomats said the artillery attack on the mosque came after civilian males over the age of 40 were confined to the mosque while younger men were rounded up for the Afghan army. No reason was given for the Soviet attack. The unidentified general was captured when a MIG-21 jet was shot down on November 12, the diplomats said.
U.S. and Vietnamese searchers found human bone fragments and what may be parts of a B-52 bomber that crashed in 1972 in a vegetable garden nine miles north of Hanoi. Colonel Joe Harvey, the U.S. team leader, reported finding the bone fragments and “some small pieces of wreckage that suggest this is a U.S. aircraft.” Twelve Americans and several Vietnamese took part in the unprecedented joint excavation effort.
The Asian Wall Street Journal and its editor apologized to Singapore’s High Court today for committing contempt of court in an editorial published in The Journal last month. The newspaper and its editor accepted responsibility for what Attorney General Tan Boon Teik called “a scandalous article” in The Journal’s Oct. 17 issue.
As has often happened in the history of the Philippines, official corruption is emerging as a central issue within the nation. Now, according to Congressional sources and Administration officials, it is becoming an increasingly important factor in relations between the United States and the Philippines. The corruption issue figured in an unsuccessful effort to impeach President Ferdinand E. Marcos last summer. Opposition leaders have said they intend to bring it up in the elections scheduled for early next year and may refile impeachment charges with new documentation. In the United States, Congressional investigators and a federal grand jury in the Washington area are looking into corruption in the Philippines.
A State Department official said the Reagan Administration will not provide electric cattle prods to Central American governments as part of a proposed $54-million package of counterterrorism aid. James H. Michel, deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he “would have no hesitation in giving” the assurance that the cattle prods, used for crowd control, would not be included if the panel approved an aid request.
Sierra Leone’s Ambassador to the United States yesterday denied charges that his Government had helped conspirators in an unsuccessful coup in Liberia last week. The Ambassador, Dauda S. Kamara, said the accusations by the Liberian Government “were based on nothing but untruths.” On Monday, Liberia recalled its Ambassador to Sierra Leone, closed its border with the neighboring West African country and recalled the Liberian minister to the Manu River Union, an economic association that includes Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and that has headquarters in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital.
Zimbabwe has rejected charges by Amnesty International that it has increased the detention and torture of suspected Government opponents, the country’s embassy in Britain said today. Zimbabwe’s Home Affairs Minister, Enos Nkala, met Monday with officials of Amnesty International, the London-based human rights organization, and said its report contained false allegations. Amnesty reported beatings, electric shocks and other torture at Government detention camps since a general election in Zimbabwe in July. An embassy spokesman said Mr. Nkala expressed a willingness to meet with anyone who had been tortured if Amnesty International were to produce him. He also said anyone guilty of torture would be prosecuted. An Amnesty International spokesman described the meeting as useful but said the organization would not bring forth people who had provided evidence of torture.
The South African police said today that they had shot and killed three black protesters in a segregated township east of here. Witnesses said a fourth black may have died when a storeowner in the segregated township, Leandra, opened fire on stone-throwing protesters. The reports came after a weekend of violence elsewhere, and almost four months after the declaration of a state of emergency that was supposed to curb unrest. Leandra township is not one of the 38 districts covered by the emergency.
The House declined to challenge President Reagan’s veto of a $13billion appropriations bill, sending back to committee the measure to fund the Treasury, the Postal Service and the White House. The action was taken on a voice vote with little debate. Reagan vetoed the bill Friday as an “unacceptable measure,” saying it was $951.1 million more than the Administration requested and $289 million more than the congressional budget resolution permitted, primarily because $820 million was provided for the Postal Service to subsidize low mailing rates from charities and other groups.
The House Ways and Means Committee voted today to abolish the investment tax credit and to lengthen the time over which companies can write off their investments in plants and machinery. Many industries have used the investment credit and the rapid depreciation features of the 1981 tax law to reduce their tax liabilities significantly. Today’s decisions mean businesses would have to pay about $150 billion more in taxes over the next five years than they would owe without a change in the law, according to estimates by the committee staff. Encouraged by the biggest tax decisions his committee has made in its consideration of tax revision legislation, the chairman, Representative Dan Rostenkowski, said the actions showed “there’s some reform in the minds of members.”
The Navy’s plan for dispersing its growing fleet of warships to 15 new home ports in New York and on the West and Gulf Coasts hit an obstacle today when Congress ordered the plan delayed for further study. In a short clause of a $9 billion military construction bill that was passed today and sent to President Reagan, the Navy was barred from spending any money on its ship dispersal plan until the service has provided more detailed justification for its estimated $1 billion cost. “The conferees have serious concerns that at a time when the defense budget is under severe constraints, the Navy is starting a billion-dollar construction program,” members of a House-Senate conference committee wrote in their 125-page report accompanying the legislation. “Such a program could make modernization of our existing bases unaffordable.”
President Reagan’s nomination of Edward A. Curran to be chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities was rejected today by a Senate committee that questioned his qualifications and credibility. More than nine months after William J. Bennett left as the endowment’s chairman to become Secretary of Education, the President’s choice of Mr. Curran as Mr. Bennett’s successor was killed by the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. On a pair of 8-to-8 votes, the committee refused to approve Mr. Curran’s nomination or to send it to the Senate floor without a recommendation. Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican who is chairman of the committee, then announced that the nomination would be returned to the White House.
The Food and Drug Administration proposed that an estimated 1,100 prescription drugs containing sulfite preservatives carry warnings that the substance can cause an allergic reaction, possibly life-threatening, in some susceptible people. The FDA issued a proposed regulation that would require the warning in drug-information inserts given to physicians. The agency said it was acting after receiving 14 reports of allergic reactions to sulfite preservatives in drugs, primarily among asthmatics. It said more reactions may have occurred but have been attributed to side effects of the drug involved.
House Judiciary Committee members, meeting in closed session, debated whether to release a confidential report described by The Times last week that criticizes the actions of some Administration officials during 1982-83 congressional investigations of the Environmental Protection Agency. Rep. Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-New Jersey), the committee chairman, told reporters later the panel agreed to allow persons criticized in the report to examine the document and offer comments before the 1,200-page study is made public. The report charges that a White House deputy counsel and three former Justice Department officials misled Congress and a federal court about the contents of EPA documents withheld from two House subcommittees.
Lawyers for 11 church workers on trial in Arizona on Federal charges involving aid to illegal aliens offered opening arguments today, stressing that their clients had been motivated by religious and humanitarian concerns. The defendants, facing criminal conspiracy charges, include two Roman Catholic priests, a nun, a Protestant minister and church lay workers. They are charged with conspiracy to smuggle, transport and harbor illegal aliens from El Salvador and Guatemala. Federal District Judge Earl Carroll has barred testimony about the defendants’ religious or humanitarian motivations, conditions in Central America, or United States policy in the region. Despite this, he initially allowed defense counsel to discuss motivation in opening statements and to depict conditions that drove Central Americans from their homelands.
Officials investigating the discovery of 11 bodies at a survivalist’s cabin in a remote part of Calaveras County say two women who appeared in video tapes found at the cabin have been identified as among the victims. Forensic experts used dental charts and bits of teeth found this summer near Leonard Lake’s cabin at Wilseyville to identify the remains of Kathleen Allen, 18 years old, of Milpitas, and Brenda O’Connor, 20, District Attorney John E. Martin said. Mr. Lake died June 6 after swallowing a suicide pill while in the custody of the San Francisco police. His companion, Charles Chitat Ng, was arrested in Calgary, Alberta, July 6 and held on charges of attempted murder. The remains of the two women were the fifth and sixth to be positively identified since investigators uncovered 11 bodies near Mr. Lake’s cabin.
A third delay in the spy trial of a Ghanaian accused of seducing a woman CIA clerk to get classified information raised speculation that a plea bargain or spy swap may be in the works. Federal Judge Claude Hilton has delayed until December 9 the opening of the espionage trial of Michael Asboutui Soussoudis. He is charged with obtaining classified information from Sharon Marie Scranage, 29, a CIA clerk, while she was stationed in Ghana from 1983 to 1984. Scranage is free on bail pending sentencing.
Philadelphia’s Mayor vowed to eliminate the corruption that he said had “overwhelmed” the city police department’s credibility. Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode disclosed a plan to reorganize the city’s police department, saying his first goal was to hire a new police commissioner to replace Gregore J. Sambor, who resigned last week. Sambor was criticized for the department’s handling of the fiery May 13 conflict with the radical group MOVE that left 11 members dead and destroyed 61 houses.
In the largest civil verdict in U.S. history, Pennzoil wins $10.53 billion judgement against Texaco. In the largest civil settlement at the time, Texaco was ordered to pay Pennzoil $10.53 billion in damages, plus interest, for deliberate interference in the binding merger agreement between Pennzoil and Getty Oil. Texaco had acquired Getty for $10.1 billion the year before in what was then the nation’s second-largest merger in history. The resulting trial included four months of testimony. The ultimately $11.1 billion payment sent Texaco — the third-biggest oil company in the U.S. — into bankruptcy. After nearly a year in that state, and having paid Pennzoil $3 billion, Texaco was subsumed by Chevron Corporation
The nuclear industry won the first round in a legislative effort to keep a relatively low government ceiling on its liability exposure in the event of a catastrophic atomic power plant accident. By a 15-11 vote, a House energy and environment subcommittee substituted a $2-billion limit on the industry’s liability for a $10-billion ceiling proposed by Rep. Morris K. Udall (D-Arizona).
A letter warning that meat and produce had been injected with insecticide at several Southern California supermarkets where workers have been on strike caused removal of some items from shelves. No contaminated food was found, according to the authorities, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation said today that it was entering the case. More acts of vandalism were reported late Monday and early today, including a shooting incident in West Hollywood and a fire in Long Beach.
Booby-trap bombing suspect Mark Hofmann passed a lie detector test showing he did not plant the explosives that killed two persons in Salt Lake City in October, his attorney said. Ronald Yengich said his client took the polygraph test November 13, and it showed he was not lying. Hofmann, 30, was injured October 16 when a bomb exploded in his car.
A Federal district judge today lifted an order prohibiting a newspaper and a television station in Providence, Rhode Island from reporting on illegally recorded taped conversations between a reputed leader of organized crime and his father. But the judge, Francis J. Boyle, ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation not to release any more transcripts and notes from the 20-year-old tapes pending a full hearing.
Families of crew members killed or missing in the sinking of the Glomar Java Sea off the coast of Vietnam in 1983 have agreed to a $51 million settlement. Fred Hagans, an attorney in charge of a committee of lawyers representing the relatives of the 81 crew members, said the settlement was the largest in United States maritime history, with the ship’s owner agreeing to pay $38.5 million to 35 families.
A jury today convicted a debt-ridden doctor of killing his son with two shots to the head to collect more than $140,000 in insurance benefits. Jurors deliberated less than three hours in finding Dr. John Dale Cavaness, a 60-year-old general practitioner in southern Illinois, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his son, Sean, 22, whose body was found last December near Times Beach, Missouri.
“Nonfamily” households are rising sharply, according to the Census Bureau. It said that nearly half of the households added in the United States since 1980 consist of people living alone or with nonrelatives. Such households now make up 28 percent of all households as against 19 percent in 1970. The number of people who now live alone totals 20.6 million, almost double the number in 1970.
Hurricane Kate battered the Florida Keys and the northern coast of Cuba today before moving into the Gulf of Mexico and turning slowly northward. That would allow it to regain strength over warm water and put it into position to make a new landfall within two days, threatening the Gulf Coast from Florida to Louisiana. The eye of the storm hit Havana or just to the north of the Cuban capital this afternoon, according to forecasters who tracked the hurricane by satellite. The Cuban Government did not permit United States weather reconnaissance flights into Cuban air space.
The varying glow of Halley’s Comet surprised astronomers scrutinizing the approaching comet through the 158-inch telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona. The deceptive comet appeared not to move at all, although it was traveling 15 miles a second.
Herb Gardner’s stage comedy “I’m Not Rappaport”, starring Judd Hirsch and Cleavon Little, opens at the Booth Theatre, NYC; runs 891 performances, with 3 Tony Award wins
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1438.99 (-1.03)
Born:
Alex Mack, NFL center (Pro Bowl, 2010, 2013, 2015–2018, 2021; Cleveland Browns, Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers), in Los Angeles, California.
Patrick Bailey, NFL linebacker (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 43-Steelers; Pittsburgh Steelers, Tennessee Titans), in Elmendorf, Texas.
Andre Ingram, NBA shooting guard (Los Angeles Lakers), in Richmond, Virginia.
Brad Harman, Australian MLB pinch hitter, second baseman and third baseman (Philadelphia Phillies), in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Jeff Glass, Canadian NHL goaltender (Chicago Blackhawks), in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Died:
Stepin Fetchit [Lincoln Perry], 83, American actor (“Miracle in Harlem”) 1st African American film star, of pneumonia.
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