The United States and its NATO allies agreed today to seek an early test next month of the stated Soviet willingness to negotiate a separate accord on medium-range missiles. The negotiations on medium-range missiles are viewed as particularly important by those European allies that have agreed to deploy new American missiles on their territory. They did so with the understanding that the United States would seek at the same time to reach agreement with the Russians on cutting missiles, an effort that so far has failed. As foreign ministers and other officials gathered here for the winter meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, several European diplomats said they expected the next meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, to be held in Washington in June.
The Soviet co-founder of the doctors group that won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Yevgeny I. Chazov, assailed the concept of a space-based missile defense as “one more step toward nuclear war.” Dr. Chazov’s comments appeared to be directed at President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as “Star Wars.” The Reagan plan has been a major issue in arms talks between the Soviet Union and the United States. “They speak about the research objectives of space militarization, about its defensive significance,” Dr. Chazov said in his Nobel lecture, a speech traditionally given the day after the prize is awarded. As Dr. Chazov did Tuesday in his acceptance speech, he spoke in English.
In a wire service story from Oslo, The New York Times mistakenly reported Wednesday that the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee had protested the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to an international physicians’ group co-founded by Dr. Yevgeny I. Chazov, Soviet deputy health minister. In fact, the protest came from Senator Alphonse M. D’Amato (R-New York), chairman of a congressional commission that also monitors the implementation of the Helsinki accords. The U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee is a private organization with no connection to the congressional commission.
Admiral Sergei G. Gorshkov, the man responsible for building the modern Soviet Navy, has been replaced as the naval commander in chief by his chief of staff, a Defense Ministry spokesman said today. The spokesman confirmed the shift by telephone after the military newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, announced that the former chief of staff, Admiral Vladimir N. Chernavin, had left on a visit to Tunisia, and identified him as the navy’s commander in chief and as a Deputy Defense Minister. The ministerial title goes automatically along with a service command.
About 1,500 Protestants bitterly opposed to the Anglo-Irish agreement on Northern Ireland attacked police with bricks and bottles, injuring 37 officers, as Cabinet ministers from Britain and Ireland held their first meeting under the agreement at Stormont Castle near Belfast. The Protestant crowd, shut out by tight security from demonstrating at Stormont Castle, tried to storm the Maryfield House, which will house a joint delegation set up under the agreement. The demonstrators pelted police and tore the gate from the building’s hinges, but were eventually restrained by the Rev. Ian Paisley, an Ulster Protestant leader. British and Irish Cabinet ministers held their first meeting on the affairs of Northern Ireland in Belfast behind barbed wire and massed police officers who held off angry Protestant demonstrators.
Large numbers of employees of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization held a work stoppage today to demand changes in the agency’s policy on dismissing employees. Dismissals are expected as part of cost-cutting measures after the withdrawal from Unesco of the United States and, last week, Britain, employees said. In addition, five staff members began a hunger strike at noon Tuesday in the lobby of Unesco’s headquarters building to press a demand that an association of employees be given a greater role in decisions about job dismissals. The work stoppage was the first strike at Unesco since 1974 and, according to some of its leaders, indicated dissatisfaction with the organization’s Director General, Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow of Senegal. With the Unesco budget cut by some 30 percent because of the departures of the United States and Britain, the organization is expected to have to dismiss some 350 employees out of a total staff of roughly 3,000. In previous months, the Unesco staff association has demanded that a joint committee be set up to recommend staff changes to the Director General. Until now, Mr. M’Bow has refused the request, association members said today.
A bomb exploded today in a chapel of a basilica where St. Francis of Assisi died in 1226, damaging frescoes but causing no injuries, the police said. The blast came only 12 hours after the police defused another bomb found in a second St. Francis basilica, about two miles away. The police said they suspected the bombs were the work of a “deranged” person. They said the bomb exploded in a chapel of the Santa Maria Degli Angeli basilica, which stands in a valley about two miles outside Assisi in central Italy.
A team of American investigators arrived in Israel today to question two Israeli diplomats and a senior counterterrorism official who have been linked to an espionage operation in Washington. After arriving, the team, led by Abraham D. Sofaer, the State Department legal adviser, drove to Jerusalem and went into consultations with senior Israeli Foreign Ministry and intelligence officials at the Foreign Ministry building. Israeli and American spokesman declined to give details about the activities of the American team or the nature of the discussions they will begin Thursday with the Israelis purportedly involved with Jonathan Jay Pollard, a Navy intelligence analyst accused of passing secret documents to Israel. An American Embassy official did say the Americans “will be trying to talk to whoever here can aid them in the Pollard case.” He added: “There will be no arrival statements. No press conferences, no photo opportunities that we know of. The team wants to complete their investigation as quickly as possible and then get back.”
Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are staging a hunger strike to protest prison conditions, Israeli officials announced. The prisoners, held in West Bank jails, began refusing food Monday, the officials said. The protesters include Palestinians serving jail terms for criminal offenses and those suspected of planning terrorist acts but not yet brought to trial.
Palestinian leaders from the occupied territories will go to Jordan to try to persuade Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat to accept U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which implicitly recognizes Israel, Palestinian sources said in Jerusalem. According to the sources, among those on the mission will be Hanna Siniora, a Palestinian moderate from East Jerusalem; Rashid Shawa, former mayor of Gaza in the Gaza Strip, and Mustafa Natshe, former mayor of Hebron in the West Bank. A Jordanian-Syrian meeting is planned. King Hussein has accepted an invitation to visit an old enemy, President Hafez al-Assad, in Damascus. Diplomats in Amman said they expected the meeting to be held before the end of the month.
A joint force of Lebanese Army soldiers and policemen was deployed in West Beirut today in a new attempt to end the rule of the militia groups in the mainly Muslim area. The force, numbering 850, moved out of barracks at dawn and began patrolling the streets, where rival militiamen of the Shiite movement Amal and the mostly Druze Progressive Socialist Party have been observing a cease-fire after heavy fighting last month. More than 60 people were killed and 300 wounded in the fighting. The security plan is being observed by 38 Syrian Army officers, and has the full support of Amal and the Druse forces, the largest militias in the Muslim part of the capital. Under the plan, militiamen have been forbidden to carry weapons or wear uniforms, and most of their offices have been closed down.
About half a million Iranian soldiers have deployed along the central and southern border with Iraq for what Western diplomats described as an imminent major offensive in their five-year-old war. The Baghdad-based diplomats said that Iraqi forces in three border provinces are on maximum alert. The reports on the deployments could not be independently verified. Iran and Iraq do not allow journalists into the war zone.
The State Department expressed regret to China today because of the failure of the campus police in Berkeley, California, to notify the Chinese Consulate General of the arrest of a Chinese student. China, in an unusually harsh protest issued in Peking today, accused the police of beating the student and demanded an official apology. The student, identified by the State Department as Li Hizhi, was arrested by campus policemen at the University of California in Berkeley this week. According to the State Department, Mr. Li was suspected of peeping through a women’s dormitory window, but it was later determined he was innocent. The State Department said Mr. Li struggled when arrested and when he was being booked. Even though it was apparent he was not the Peeping Tom being sought, he was later charged by the Berkeley police with resisting arrest. According to the State Department, the police said they had used only the necessary force to subdue him. The State Department said an official apology was given to the Chinese Government because of the failure of the police to immediately notify the Chinese Consul General in San Francisco, as required under exchange agreements.
The Philippine opposition agreed that Corazon Aquino would run for President with her chief rival, Salvador H. Laurel, as her running mate. The compromise was worked out one hour before the expiration of a midnight filing deadline. The slate will face President Ferdinand E. Marcos in elections scheduled for February 7 under the banner of Mr. Laurel’s party. The announcement of a slate to oppose President Ferdinand E. Marcos came three days after the unexpected collapse of an earlier effort to form a unified front. The Aquino-Laurel slate will face Mr. Marcos in elections set for Feb. 7 under the banner of Mr. Laurel’s party. Both opposition candidates predicted victory, with Mr. Laurel saying: “In a fairly clean election we’ll get 80 percent and Mr. Marcos should get 20 percent. In a fairly dirty election, Mr. Marcos will get a little more, maybe 30 percent.”
Assertions that President Marcos and his wife, Imelda, have accumulated extensive real estate and other holdings in the United States are the subject of House of Representatives subcommittee hearings that started yesterday. The House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asian and Pacific affairs, headed by Representative Stephen J. Solarz, Democrat of Brooklyn, had limited success in obtaining the information it sought, according to Congressional sources. Lawyers for three of the witnesses said that their clients would not be able to provide all the information the subcommittee is seeking because of attorney-client privileges and insufficient time to respond to the requests.
The Salvadoran Supreme Court has ordered a former rightist attorney general reinstated in an apparent setback to the judicial reform efforts of President Jose Napoleon Duarte. Jose Francisco Guerrero, fired as attorney general last May in one of the first acts of the new National Assembly, said he will resume his duties today. He said he has not yet decided whether to stay in office until the three-year term expires in May, 1987.
Nineteen rebels and 15 soldiers were reported killed today in battles north and east of San Salvador. The military press office said soldiers of the Fifth Brigade had killed 15 rebels in a battle near Santa Clara, about 35 miles east of the capital. In fighting 14 miles north of the capital, the press office said, seven soldiers and two guerrillas died, and near the provincial capital of Chalatenango the death toll was given as eight soldiers and two rebels. The press office added that three civilians had been killed and three wounded by mines on rural roads east of San Salvador.
On a summer’s day last year, while children painted white doves on sidewalks and artists sang poems to peace, Colombians of all ages crowded downtown Bogota to celebrate a cease-fire between the army and leftist guerrillas. As they wandered across the historic Plaza Bolivar, many families paused to meditate upon the words inscribed above the entrance to the Palace of Justice, “Colombians, arms have given you independence, laws will give you freedom.” But now, 16 months later, with heavily armed soldiers guarding the plaza and scaffolding covering the burned-out shell of the palace, hopes that political violence will give way to the rule of law here have once again faded. The seizure of the building by M-19 guerrillas on Nov. 6 was the most dramatic evidence to date that the cease-fire had broken down. But the fierce counterattack 28 hours later, which left more than 100 dead, including 12 Supreme Court justices, demonstrated no less dramatically that the army’s patience had run out.
Guyana’s President Desmond Hoyte declared an “obviously overwhelming” election victory and rejected opposition charges of vote fraud by his party, which has controlled the government for 21 years. Official complete returns from districts representing 95% of the voters in the South American country gave Hoyte’s socialist People’s National Congress more than 76% of the votes cast, about five times more than the nearest challenger. Two of the opposition parties boycotted the vote-counting, contending that the lives of their representatives would be in danger.
Samuel K. Doe, Liberia’s head of state, lifted a monthlong curfew and ordered the release of 14 people who were arrested after a November 12 coup attempt. In a radio broadcast, Doe said the government does not have sufficient proof to detain the 14 any longer, but he asked that they remain available to assist in an investigation. The coup attempt followed the October 15 elections, in which Doe was declared the winner with 51% of the vote. The opposition has charged extensive voting irregularities.
Uganda’s military ruler, General Tito Okello, announced that elections would be held next July, a year after President Milton Obote was ousted in a coup, the Uganda radio said today. The radio did not say if the elections were contingent on the military rulers signing a peace agreement with the rebel National Resistance Army. The group is only one of four major guerrilla groups that have not yet come to terms with the military regime. Peace talks between the National Resistance Army and the Government have been going on in Nairobi, Kenya, since August. On Tuesday, President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya said the two sides would sign a peace accord on Friday.
In an effort to balance the budget after 24 deficits in 25 years, Congress tonight approved legislation aimed at shrinking the deficit to zero by 1991. After nine hours of debate, the Senate approved the bill this evening on a bipartisan vote of 61 to 31. The House then debated the legislation for 90 minutes before approving it on a bipartisan vote of 271 to 154 and sending it to the White House. President Reagan endorsed the bill, despite his reservations about its effect on the military budget. The White House said that Mr. Reagan would sign the bill Thursday morning. In both the House and Senate, a majority of Republicans supported the legislation, while half the Democrats voting in the Senate and a majority in the House opposed it. A majority of Democrats had supported budget-balancing proposals that were initially approved in the House and Senate. “It is an act of legislative desperation,” said Representative Jim Wright of Texas, the Democratic majority leader, who voted for the plan.
In a striking setback for President Reagan, the House of Representatives voted today to block consideration of tax revision legislation, the top legislative priority of the President’s second term. Democratic leaders, working with the White House, toiled tonight to revive the measure for a vote before Congress adjourns, probably by the end of the week. But the Democrats said today’s vote indicated that tax legislation could not pass unless Mr. Reagan could round up more Republican votes for it. If the President “cannot deliver the votes in a forthwith manner, the bill is dead,” said Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., the Speaker of the House. The White House, apparently taken by surprise by today’s outcome, was said tonight to be trying urgently to win the support of Republican lawmakers. “It ain’t over till it’s over,” said Treasury Secretary James A. Baker 3d.
One of the most abrupt Congressional setbacks of Ronald Reagan’s Presidency left startled White House officials trying to figure out where they went wrong and making plans late today to salvage some form of tax revision, the major legislative priority of Mr. Reagan’s second term. The House defeat marked an uncharacteristic lapse for White House legislative strategists who had not gauged the depth of Republican opposition and did not make full use of Mr. Reagan’s persuasive powers. Moreover the blocking of consideration of the tax legislation, which may turn out to be temporary, came as Congress moved to endorse a budget-balancing proposal that, Administration officials concede, threatens key portions of Mr. Reagan’s legislative agenda, including military programs. This put Mr. Reagan in the paradoxical position of losing a key vote on legislation that he regards as central to his legacy while a budget-balancing bill about which he has serious reservations continued to move ahead.
President Reagan receives a menorah from a group of Rabbis.
The President and the First Lady host a Christmas Party for members of the press.
Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret M. Heckler moved to require a warning on aspirin packages about the suspected link between the drug and deadly Reye’s syndrome, which afflicts children and teenagers. The proposed rule, which would not take effect for at least 120 days, would replace voluntary warnings printed by manufacturers that tell consumers of the possible dangers of giving aspirin to children or teen-agers who have the flu or chicken pox. The rare childhood disease, which usually develops among victims of flu and chicken pox, causes death in 30% of the cases and brain damage among some survivors.
The Reagan Administration may not decide how to attack the problem of acid rain for three more years, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee M. Thomas told a hostile Senate hearing. Thomas’ statement added a year to his previous estimate for when the Administration would recommend a program for combatting the acidic deposits from vehicle and fossil fuel boilers that environmentalists say are destroying lakes and forests around the nation.
A Senate committee authorized funds for federal family-planning clinics for the next four years after working out a special deal with a key abortion foe. In a compromise reached with Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), the committee sent the Senate legislation to authorize the program with $142.5 million for 1986 and a 5% increase in each of the following three years. Hatch agreed not to attach anti-abortion language to the bill in return for a provision permitting state-funded clinics in Utah alone to require parental consent before a teen-ager gets birth control,
William J. Bennett asked the public to send him letters describing efforts that have been successful in preventing students from dropping out of school. Mr. Bennett, the Federal Education Secretary, pledged to “report back to the American people on what I learn” from the letters about motivating students.
Attempting to deal with espionage and disclosures of information, President Reagan has ordered a more widespread use of mandatory polygraph, or lie-detector, testing of Administration officials with access to highly sensitive security material, the White House announced today. Under terms of a security directive signed November 1 by the President, a “selective number of individuals who have highest levels of access” to Government secrets will have to undergo the polygraph tests. The tests will be mandated both at the time of job appointment and at whatever other times superiors decide is necessary, according to Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman. The White House made the announcement only after news of the directive had been reported by The Los Angeles Times.
The General Accounting Office said Tuesday that despite new information supplied by the Pentagon, it still took the view that a nerve gas bomb under development was beset by technical problems and that there was no need for Congress to appropriate funds for the weapon this year. The assessment by the G.A.O., the Congressional investigative agency, was conveyed in a letter to Dante B. Fascell, Democrat of Florida, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr. Fascell, a critic of new chemical weapons, had asked for the report. House and Senate conferees are expected to take up the issue of chemical weapons as part of a catchall appropriation bill they are now considering.
Geraldine A. Ferraro declared yesterday that she would not be a candidate for the United States Senate next year, because of a continuing Justice Department investigation of her 1978 Congressional campaign finances and subsequent financial reports as a member of the House. “It is with great reluctance that I have concluded not to be a candidate for the United States Senate,” she said quickly, almost swallowing her words, but with no show of emotion. “A final and unequivocal decision,” she said at a hurriedly called news conference at Queens Borough Hall, a few blocks from her home and office. Last Sunday evening, Mrs. Ferraro said, “I would love to be in the Senate.”
Jurors in New Orleans began deliberations in the trial of Governor Edwin W. Edwards on 50 counts of racketeering, mail and wire fraud, one of the most publicized trials in Louisiana’s colorful political history. Edwards arrived at court saying that he is confident he will be acquitted, and added, “I am anxious for the verdict.” During the last 13 weeks, the federal government has been trying to prove that Edwards and four others used their influence to illegally obtain state certificates for hospital and nursing home projects in which they held an interest.
G.E. agreed to acquire RCA, the owner of the NBC television network, in a transaction worth more than $6 billion. The purchase is to be completed several months from now. Earlier this year, it was announced that the American Broadcasting Companies would be acquired by Capital Cities Communications for $3.5 billion. The ABC deal, which caught most entertainment industry analysts by surprise, caused Wall Street to upgrade sharply what it thought the nation’s three networks were worth. Shortly after that acquisition was announced, Ted Turner, the Atlanta broadcast entrepreneur, tried unsuccessfully to acquire CBS.
The Pentagon said that thousands of soldiers and sailors who took part in 1946 tests of atomic weapons were exposed only to low levels of radiation. The assertion by the Defense Nuclear Agency to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee disputed a General Accounting Office report last week that said as many as 17,000 of the 42,000 military personnel who were part of the tests may have received more radiation than earlier believed.
A cave-in occurred at a Pennsylvania coal mine today while miners were blasting, killing three men who were trapped more than half a mile underground, officials said. One miner escaped and a second, who suffered two broken legs, was pulled out alive, the officials said. The accident occurred at the M.S. and W. Coal Company in this Schuylkill County village, according to James Shober, an official with the Department of Environmental Resources. The cave-in blocked the air to the mine, said Susan Woods, another environmental agency aide.
An 85-year-old Seattle man who shot and killed his seriously ill wife was sentenced Tuesday to a year of community service at a food bank. The King County prosecutor’s office had asked for jail time for the man, Albert J. Fiala Sr., but a spokesman said prosecutors were satisfied with the sentence handed down by Superior Court Judge Frank Eberharter.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the grounding from commercial service today of a twin-engine commuter aircraft, the Fairchild-Saab 340, because of recurrent engine failures that are believed to be linked to icing problems. The action came after five incidents over the past four months in which one of the plane’s engines failed.
American women will still work in predominately female, largely low-paying occupations for the foreseeable future, a panel formed by the National Academy of Sciences has concluded. The panel expressed concern that reversals of Federal civil rights policy under the Reagan Administration were likely to hurt women’s future job prospects.
The virus that causes AIDS can also produce meningitis, an acute infection of the membranes that line the brain and spinal cord, according to reports published yesterday. The new findings indicate that the AIDS virus must be added to the list of viruses and bacteria that have long been known to cause meningitis. Two reports in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine strengthen the evidence that HTLV-III, the virus that causes AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, can produce infections of the brain and central nervous system, in addition to its well-documented ravages of the body’s immune defense system. In some cases the effects on the brain have appeared before there was evidence of destruction of the immune system.
If the AIDS epidemic continues unabated, the nation’s insurance industry could be paying billions in benefits in two years, an industry official warned Tuesday. “We are very concerned with the AIDS crisis, its devastating impact on AIDS patients and its implications to both the insurance-buying public and the industry itself,” said the official, Russel P. Iuculano, legislative director for the American Council of Life Insurance. The council’s members account for 95 percent of the life insurance in force in the United States.
A computer store owner in Sacramento, California is killed by a package bomb. A mail bomb, later linked to the Unabomber, kills Sacramento computer store owner Hugh Scrutton.
NHL Record 62 points scored, Edmonton (36) beats Chicago (26) 12-9 & ties record of 21 goals. Wayne Gretzky matched his National Hockey League record for assists in a game with seven tonight in leading the Edmonton Oilers to a 12-9 victory over the Chicago Black Hawks. Gretzky’s achievement was only one of a number of league scoring marks tied or broken.
The Giants send second baseman Manny Trillo to the Cubs for shortstop Dave Owen, and catcher Alex Trevino to the Dodgers for outfielder Candy Maldonado; the Phillies trade pitchers John Denny and Jeff Gray to the Reds for of Gary Redus and pitcher Tom Hume, and the Dodgers trade veteran catcher Steve Yeager to the Mariners for pitcher Ed Vande Berg. Vande Berg will have a lackluster year in Southern California after which the Dodgers will release him and he will sign with Cleveland.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,500 for the first time.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1511.70 (+12.50)
Born:
Zach Miller, NFL tight end (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 48-Seahawks, 2013; Pro Bowl, 2010; Oakland Raiders, Seahawks), in Tempe, Arizona.
Chevis Jackson, NFL defensive back (Atlanta Falcons, Jacksonville Jaguars), in Mobile, Alabama.
Mike Tepper, NFL tackle (Indianapolis Colts), in Cypress, California.
Tyrone McKenzie, NFL linebacker (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Minnesota Vikings), in Queens, New York, New York.
Karla Souza, Mexican actress (“How to Get Away With Murder”), in Mexico City, Mexico.
Samantha Ponder, American sportscaster (ESPN), in Phoenix, Arizona.
History Diaries 