Secretary of State George P. Shultz met here with President Nicolae Ceausescu today and told him that Rumania’s treatment of some of its Christian sects could cause it to lose its preferential trade status in the United States, a senior American official said. The two agreed to set up machinery under which high officials in Washington and Bucharest will deal directly with charges that human rights are being violated in Rumania. According to the official, Mr. Shultz warned the Rumanian leader at the start of his first visit to Eastern Europe that Congress would act to deprive Rumania of its most favored nation treatment if steps were not taken soon to ease pressure on various Christian evangelical sects that are not officially authorized to conduct services in Rumania. At a news conference before flying to Budapest tonight, Mr. Shultz said his three-hour meeting with Mr. Ceausescu was “candid and frank,” which is diplomatic shorthand for blunt disagreements.
Hundreds of policemen today blocked several thousand people, including Lech Walesa, from holding a memorial service for workers killed in rioting along the Baltic Coast in 1970. The police cordon was set up after a Roman Catholic mass, which was attended by 6,000 people. It was the eve of the 15th anniversary of protests against increases in food prices in which at least 45 people were shot to death by the police. Several hundred riot policemen surrounded a monument in Gdansk erected in memory of the slain workers and warned that anyone who approached it would be arrested.
The monument — three tall crosses joined by an anchor, the symbol of hope — dominates the Gdansk skyline. Witnesses said at least 70 trucks of riot policemen and five water cannons surrounded the church while other security forces stood between the church and the monument. The monument was built in 1980 and was meant to mark the beginning of cooperation for the Government, the Roman Catholic Church and the independent union. Martial law was declared the following year.
Early returns from local elections throughout Portugal today indicated that the Social Democratic Party of Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco Silva would retain control of Lisbon and Oporto, the country’s two largest cities. The Portuguese news agency ANOP reported that the incumbent Communist Party had conceded to the Socialists in Setubal, a port 25 miles south of the capital where the Communists have traditionally held control. The nation’s 7.6 million registered voters were electing about 50,000 mayors, aldermen and members of town and neighborhood councils from among 202,000 candidates. Three hours after the polls closed, computer predictions by the state-run television authority said the Social Democrats would get 42.2 percent of the vote in Lisbon, the Christian Democrats 27 percent and the Socialists 19.2 percent. Another prediction by the television authority gave the Social Democrats 36 to 38 percent of the vote in the industrial northern city of Oporto, where it said the Socialists would get 24 to 27 percent and the Communists 16.5 to 18.5 percent.
President Francois Mitterrand declared tonight that France under his Socialist Party was winning the battle for modernization and against inflation. “France is in better shape,” Mr. Mitterrand said in a television interview. “France is winning by the quality of its workers.” He forecast a 3 percent cut in taxation in 1986 and said inflation this year would be less than 5 percent. The President said that in parliamentary elections on March 16 — elections that the Socialists are widely expected to lose — voters should reflect on what they have gained in social and other benefits under four and a half years of Socialist rule. Mr. Mitterrand said that if Prime Minister Laurent Fabius said he would stay in office until March 16, “this is because he knows he has my confidence.” His remarks seemed to be aimed at healing a split caused by his protege when Mr. Fabius publicly disowned Mr. Mitterrand’s December 4 meeting with the Polish leader, Wojciech Jaruzelski. The meeting, which set off widespread controversy in France, was Mr. Jaruzelski’s first with a Western head of state since his 1981 crackdown on the independent Polish trade union Solidarity.
Boris F. Bratchenko, the Soviet coal industry minister, has been replaced after 20 years in office, the official press agency Tass reported today. About a quarter of the country’s ministers have been replaced since the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, took office in March. Soviet coal production this year has shown signs of a slight recovery after several years of decline. But two weeks after Mr. Gorbachev took office, the Communist Party daily Pravda attacked the coal sector for poor management, low productivity and badly maintained equipment.
Israel said Syria has stationed a variety of surface-to-air missiles along its border with Lebanon, seriously threatening the regular Israeli reconnaissance missions over Lebanese territory. Israeli military sources said Syria’s move was a “dangerous change in the status quo.” Any Israeli plane flying over Lebanon will now be exposed to Soviet-made SAM-2, SAM-6 and SAM-8 surface-to-air missiles, the military sources said. Before three weeks ago, the Syrians had no SAM-2 batteries near the Lebanese border and far fewer SAM-6’s and SAM-8’s in that area, the sources said. Israel, through the United States, has been quietly trying to convey to Syria how seriously it views the new missile deployments, but thus far these warnings have not produced any change, Israeli military sources said. “The advancement of the missiles to the Lebanon border is a fundamental process that alters the entire picture,” Israel’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Moshe Levy, said in a television interview this evening. “If you move up missiles to a point which, it is true, is located inside Syria, but whose range of kill-sphere covers Lebanon, that affects our freedom of flight in Lebanon to a significant degree,” he said. General Levy said Israel had demonstrated “that missile deployments can be dealt with very well militarily.”
South Lebanon Army militiamen shelled villages in apparent retaliation for guerrilla attacks. The dawn shelling, in which the Israeli-backed militia reportedly used mortars, extensively damaged some buildings. Nabih Berri, leader of the Shia Muslim militia Amal, threatened two weeks ago to order attacks on settlements inside Israel if Lebanese villages continue to come under fire.
Almost 100,000 troops and police officers were deployed in India’s Assam state to prevent a repetition of election violence that killed 4,000 in 1983. Officials said they believe the extraordinary security for today’s parliamentary and state balloting will be sufficient to deter a new wave of ethnic violence. The trouble grows out of a campaign by Assamese students, who sought to expel vast numbers of Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh. In return for an end to the student agitation, the Indian government agreed to eventually oust about 2 million of the immigrants — provoking the wrath of the Muslims and other minorities.
Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala of Punjab State, a moderate, was unanimously elected today as president of the Akali Dal, the main Sikh political party. Four hundred party delegates assembled under tight security for the election, which was conducted by a hand vote in the Golden Temple complex. A dissident leader, Balbir Singh Brar, was expelled from the parliamentary board for “anti-party” activities. Mr. Brar said that Mr. Barnala’s election would violate party principles seeking decentralization of federal authority. Mr. Barnala came to power September 25 in elections held in the Sikh-dominated northern state after two years of direct Federal rule.
Bangladesh President Hussain Mohammed Ershad said in a broadcast that his martial-law regime will lift a 10-month ban on opposition political demonstrations January 1. He also repeated his vow to restore democracy and hold national elections as soon as possible. In a goodwill gesture, the government also announced that today it will release 116 people under detention or awaiting trial. Opposition groups, however, described the moves as inadequate and vowed to proceed with protest plans.
Singapore is leaving UNESCO at the end of the year, making it the first non-Western country to quit the U.N. agency. Its reasons for leaving are financial, not political. Singapore is in an economic slump and says the membership assessment is too high. Its 1984 contribution was $98,747. The United States quit the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization at the end of 1984 over the political direction the agency has taken. Britain plans to pull out December 31.
China has agreed in principle to buy French reactors and British turbines worth more than $1.5 billion for its first nuclear power plant, officials said today. In an accord concluded in Paris on Friday, China agreed in principle to buy two 900-megawatt nuclear reactors from the French company Framatome worth at least $1.3 billion, French officials said. In addition, the officials said China agreed in principle to buy turbine generators from the General Electric Corporation of Britain and other nuclear equipment from Electricite de France worth several hundred million dollars. The total cost of the nuclear plant is estimated at $3.5 billion. Work on the station has already begun at Daya Bay in southern Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government is a partner in the project.
Ferdinand E. Marcos faces a trial for murder if his opponent in the February presidential election, Corazon C. Aquino, wins the election. Mrs. Aquino said she would put President Marcos on trial for the murder of her husband. In an interview at her home that followed a rally to open her election campaign, Mrs. Aquino said she did not have a specific program of government and that “the only thing I can really offer the Filipino people is my sincerity.” She said she had told supporters who urged her to run, “What on earth do I know about being president?’
More than 20,000 Filipinos packed a Manila plaza for the first major campaign rally by opposition candidate Corazon Aquino in her bid to unseat President Ferdinand E. Marcos. “I am not a politician,” said Aquino, who blames Marcos for the 1983 assassination of her husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr. “I do not tell lies. And I am not a dictator. I thank God I am different from Marcos.” Her running mate, Salvador Laurel, said his United Nationalist Democratic Organization will support Aquino even if other opposition groups shed him.
New Zealand said today it would consider sending two French secret service agents jailed for their part in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, but only if France guaranteed to keep them in jail. Prime Minister David Lange said that the two agents, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, would under no circumstances be freed early from the 10-year sentences they are serving for helping blow up the Greenpeace environmental organization’s flagship in Auckland harbor in July.
Mexican rescue workers battled high seas in an attempt to locate 32 workers still missing from a government oil company exploration vessel that sank in the stormy Gulf of Mexico with 71 aboard. The vessel, the Huichol, leased by the Pemex oil monopoly, went down off Ciudad del Carmen, about 500 miles east of Mexico City, an oil company spokesman said. Thirty-nine survivors have been picked up.
Interior Minister Tomas Borge has denied an assertion by President Reagan that Nicaragua supplied weapons to leftist guerrillas who staged a takeover of Colombia’s Palace of Justice last month. Mr. Borge, speaking to a group of policemen late Saturday, also accused the military in El Salvador, which receives aid from the United States, of training Nicaraguan rebels in their fight against the Nicaragua Government. Mr. Reagan, in his weekly radio address Saturday, asserted that Nicaragua aided the rebel April 19 Movement, or M-19, which seized the Palace of Justice in Bogota, Colombia, last month and held it for more than a day before troops recaptured the building in a battle that left about 100 people dead.
At the height of the worst crisis of his Colombian Government last month, President Belisario Betancur finally decided to play the most powerful political card at his disposal. He called together five elderly men who form the exclusive — and peculiarly Colombian — “club” of former presidents and obtained from them a crucial declaration of support. Immediately, there was an easing of the tension that had been created by the loss of more than 100 lives, including those of 12 Supreme Court justices, when the army ended a terrorist occupation of the country’s Palace of Justice last month.
Ethiopia’s top famine relief official, Dawit Wolde Giorgis, has vanished, sources in Addis Ababa said. The Sunday Times of London said that Dawit, who was on a trip to the West, may be seeking asylum in the United States. The sources — including officials of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission Dawit heads, Western diplomats and acquaintances of Dawit — privately acknowledged that his return from a trip to Europe and the United States is about three weeks overdue. At that time, they added, he “stopped sending back reports to his government.” In Washington, the State Department refused to discuss the case.
Angola will not loosen ties to Moscow or ease out the 30,000 Cuban troops helping to fight a 10-year-old bush war against Communist guerrillas, according to statements heard at a party congress in Luanda last week. Speeches at the congress, the second held by the ruling Marxist-Leninist Movement for the Liberation of Angola-Workers Party since independence from Portugal a decade ago, rang with bravado and defiance of the West.
Conservatives plan to make aid for Angolan rebels their primary foreign-policy objective next year, according to spokesmen for several conservative lobbying groups. “We are going to do the same thing with this one that we did” in opposing the Panama Canal treaties and the second strategic arms limitation agreement, one conservative strategist said, adding, “Next year this will be the litmus test of the seriousness of the Reagan Administration’s commitment to the cause of freedom fighters.” So far, the Administration has successfully resisted appeals for overt military aid to the forces of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, known as Unita. But the Administration is reported to have decided to seek Congressional approval early next year for $15 million in covert aid, and some conservatives see that as a first step toward all-out backing of Unita and its leader, Jonas Savimbi. Conservative groups consider Unita one the few remaining barriers to Soviet dominance in southern Africa, and they describe its leader as a nationalist hero on an epic scale. Howard Phillips, the chairman of the Conservative Caucus, went so far in an interview this week as to suggest that “if Jonas Savimbi were an American citizen, he would be the Presidential candidate of the conservative movement in 1988.”
A land mine exploded in South Africa when it was struck by a truck, killing six people and seriously wounding five people, the South African Army said. The land mine was in an area near the Zimbabwe border. An army spokesman in Pretoria said those killed were members of two families, including a mother and two children. The incident occurred at about 6:50 P.M. at the Chatsworth game farm, about 19 miles from the border town of Messina. The incident brings to seven the number of land-mine explosions in less than three weeks near Messina. A black farm laborer was killed and six people, four of them soldiers, were wounded in explosions late last month. A soldier was slightly wounded on Thursday when an army troop carrier set off a land mine during security operations being carried out because of the series of explosions.
Tributes to the 248 soldiers killed in the charter plane crash in Gander, Newfoundland, last Thursday, were paid by mourners at a memorial service at the First Assembly of God Church in Clarksville, Tennessee. The church is near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where the soldiers, all members of the 101st Airborne Division, had their home base. Some among the 700 people attending the interdenominational service cried audibly, while others wiped away silent tears. Another service for the dead members of the 101st Airborne Division is scheduled for Monday at nearby Fort Campbell, Kentucky, with President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, attending. For the pastor of the Assembly of God church in this town near the Kentucky border, the Rev. Billy R. Jones, the special loss was Capt. Troy Carter, a chaplain who was returning with the soldiers from peacekeeping duties in the Sinai when the Arrow Air charter jet carrying them crashed Thursday.
The driving snow had abated but a bitter wind rattled the flags flying at half-staff when Gander’s townspeople turned out this afternoon to mourn the 256 Americans killed in the air disaster Thursday. The Newfoundlanders, with heavy winter coats bundled over their best suits and dresses, overfilled St. Martin’s Anglican Procathedral, where the ecumenical service was held. When no more could fit in, they spilled down the street to St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church to follow along with a closed-circuit television set. They never knew the soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who had filed sleepy-eyed before dawn into the transit lounge of Gander’s international airport to buy homecoming gifts, sing impromptu Christmas carols and phone loved ones before embarking on the final leg of a flight back from five months of peacekeeping duty in the Sinai Peninsula.
Investigators looking into the cause of the crash of the DC-8 charter jetliner in Newfoundland Thursday morning said today that the catastrophic nature of the accident was making the task both difficult and time-consuming. Peter Boag, chief investigator for the Canadian Aviation Safety Board, said the crash — which killed 256 people, mostly American soldiers — had left aircraft components and bodies torn asunder and widely scattered. The absence of survivors and severe damage to the cockpit voice recorder are also hampering the investigation, he said. “I’m optimistic that the cause of this crash will be determined,” Mr. Boag said at a news briefing. “If I was pessimistic, it would be difficult to continue working.”
Vice President George Bush urged that federal law be changed to give U.S. courts jurisdiction over terrorists who murder or kidnap Americans abroad. “Our laws at home should be equal to the terrorist challenge,” said Bush, who chairs the presidential Task Force on Combating Terrorism and was in New York to accept an honorary degree from Yeshiva University. “We need to extend the reach of U.S. law to those who would kidnap or murder U.S. citizens overseas.” He said that Congress is currently considering such a change. The question of legal jurisdiction over international terrorists came up recently in the aftermath of the Achille Lauro hijacking, in which an American was killed. Italy is handling the prosecution.
President Reagan’s last chance to save his tax overhaul initiative will be his visit to Capitol Hill today to appeal to Republicans for support, Congressional leaders said. There were indications that Democratic backing for tax revision legislation was slipping and that Republican support was still shy of the votes needed for House passage. House Democrats said the fate of the tax revision effort would be known Monday afternoon after Mr. Reagan makes an extraordinary trip to a House office building across the street from the Capitol to appeal to Republicans behind closed doors for support for what he has called the top legislative priority of his second term. The meeting is deemed pivotal because efforts over the weekend by the White House to round up Republican support apparently lined up only 35 of the minimum of 50 Republican votes that House Democrats say are necessary to insure House passage of the bill. Representative Dan Rostenkowski, the Illinois Democrat who heads the Ways and Means Committee, said in a television interview that Mr. Reagan’s private meeting with Republicans would produce enough votes to insure passage of the bill this week before Congress adjourns for the year.
Eleven months ago, when the Reagan Administration introduced a farm bill that proposed to trim farmers’ incomes, reduce Government expenditures and produce a long-term policy that would tie agricultural production to a free market, House and Senate leaders condemned the idea as “dead on arrival.” But President Reagan’s proposals turned out to be surprisingly resilient. Although the five-year farm bill approved Saturday by House and Senate negotiators did not achieve the saving Mr. Reagan wished, it contained a number of strategic changes, originally included in the Administration’s bill, that are likely to produce important alterations in the nation’s farm policy. Among the Reagan proposals that survived months of exhaustive debate on Capitol Hill were plans to make American crops more competitive on the world market by lowering the Government-established loan support price for wheat, corn, soybeans, rice and cotton. Never before had support prices for these crops been reduced.
President Reagan hosts a reception for the Ronald Reagan Library Foundation Board of Governors.
The President and the First Lady attend the “Christmas in Washington” show.
A deep rift has divided the leading scientists at work on President Reagan’s antimissile defense plan. Some of them charge that the program is being seriously threatened by exaggerated assertions, hyperbolic tests and costly public-relations razzle dazzle. Others vigorously deny that those working on the huge research project have any interest whatsoever in showmanship or hyperbole. Critics outside the Government have long said the antimissile defense program, which is popularly known as “Star Wars,” is structured to promote the illusion of quick technical gains, no matter how great or small its actual accomplishments. But the new criticism is notable because it comes from prominent scientists who are at the forefront of the President’s program. They say their technical credibility is at stake.
The crew of the revamped space shuttle Columbia, including Rep. Bill Nelson (D-Florida), arrived at the Kennedy Space Center to prepare for the launching of the year’s 10th and final mission on Wednesday. The crew will launch an RCA American Communications Inc. relay satellite and conduct experiments in materials science, astrophysics, technology development and life science.
The jury deliberating the fate of Louisiana Governor Edwin W. Edwards took a day off while defense attorneys prepared to argue that one juror should be thrown off the panel for flashing a thumbs-down sign to reporters. The six women and six men are considering racketeering and fraud charges against Edwards and four associates. U.S. District Judge Marcel Livaudais Jr. will hear arguments today to dismiss juror Clifford West, 31, an unemployed electrician who twice gave a thumbs-down sign Saturday as jurors headed to the New Orleans courthouse for deliberations. If he is dismissed, the 11 remaining jurors could decide the case.
Defense attorneys say a subpoena has been issued for Teamster President Jackie Presser to appear in the trial of eight men accused of skimming more than $2 million from Las Vegas casinos. Joseph DiNatale, an attorney for defendant John Cerone, has confirmed that process servers have been employed to serve the subpoena to Presser, the Kansas City Star reported. The subpoena calls for his appearance as a defense witness.
A woman whose husband was listed as missing in action in Vietnam in 1970 said she found a garbage can full of letters, most of them unopened, addressed to MIAs in care of Vietnam’s mission to the United Nations in New York. A spokesman for the mission said such mail is routinely thrown out because there is too much of it to be processed. Judy Lewis, 58, manager of the Waterside Cafe in a complex that houses the Vietnamese U.N. mission, made the discovery when she arrived at work.
The state’s top human rights officer has ruled that AIDS is a handicap, and that discriminating against its victims violates the state disability law, an AIDS victim’s attorney says. The lawyer, Larry Corman, said Friday that Donald Griffin, executive director of the Florida Commission on Human Relations, has ruled that Broward County officials acted improperly in dismissing a budget analyst, Todd Shuttleworth, last year after it was learned that he had AIDS. Mr. Griffin’s decision, according to documents provided by Mr. Corman, noted that medical experts are virtually unanimous in the belief that acquired immune deficiency syndrome is not transmitted by casual contact. The Broward County Attorney, Noel Pfeffer, who wrote the policy requiring dismissal of employees found to have AIDS, said the county may appeal.
Engineers and inspectors converged on Keystone resort in the Colorado Rockies, looking for answers to why a chairlift inspected only weeks before failed, catapulting 49 skiers to the ground and injuring dozens. Twenty-four skiers thrown from the Teller Lift on Saturday remained in hospitals, three of them in critical condition. Many others were treated at hospitals and released. More than 300 skiers held to their swaying seats and were helped to safety.
Fires killed 15 people in three Middle West cities yesterday, including a suburban Chicago blaze that claimed the lives of six children, one at a nursing home near Detroit that left six dead and 27 injured, and one in Dayton, Ohio, in which three young boys died, the authorities said. In the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates, the bodies of five sisters and a brother, 6 to 15 years old, were found in their bedrooms after an older brother fled the fire and alerted the authorities.
A jetliner from London with 254 passengers and a crew of 17 aboard lost two wing-flap sections as it approached Logan International Airport in Boston today. The plane landed safely, but a section of the left wing flap 10 feet long and 4 feet wide struck a house and a car.
The Army and Air Force have overturned disciplinary actions against more than 1,600 service members because in 1982 and 1983 military laboratories mishandled tests designed to detect drug use. Pentagon administrative boards have approved 1,621 appeals and are considering another 2,817 from current and former service members who contend that they were punished on the basis of drug test results that could not stand up in court.
Two worlds are blending in Miami. After a long period of cultural rivalry and separation, Hispanic and non-Hispanic whites appear to be finding common ground. A Spanish-language television station signs off for the night with a “buenos noches.” Then the studio technicians, all young people of Hispanic origin, discuss the next day’s schedule. In English. A Harvard-educated bank executive, newly arrived from Boston, spends his first weeks studying the Spanish language and Hispanic history. The bank president, also a non-Hispanic, goes to a dance studio after work to learn salsa. A Georgia-born secretary rattles off a list of employees attending an insurance company picnic. “Dominguez . . . Guerrier . . . Gutierrez . . . Santiesteban . . .” she calls out without a hitch, accenting each syllable correctly, before stumbling upon a Polish surname.
Extensive forest damage in the Green Mountains in Vermont was attributed to air pollution, including acid rain by scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California They have flown over the area around Camel’s Hump, taking readings of the infrared light reflected by the forest canopy. They say their monitoring techniques can be used in other remote forest areas.
Seven animal-rights activists, including one dressed as Santa Claus, were arrested in a Bullock’s department store in Los Angeles as part of a nationwide protest against the sale of fur coats, said Margo Tannenbaum, a spokeswoman for a group called Last Chance for Animals. Other activists targeted fur-selling stores in 23 locations around the country “to show furs are…a symbol of pain and suffering.” A total of 66 arrests were made. In Los Angeles, bail was set at $500 each for those arrested.
100 fugitives were lured to a brunch in Washington with promises of free tickets to a Washington Redskins-Cincinnati Bengals football game and were arrested by the police and Federal marshals. One of the marshals was dressed a chicken. The police said charges against the 100 men and women ranged from possession of illegal drugs to murder.
American “Rocky” actor Sylvester Stallone (39) weds Danish “Rocky IV” actress Brigitte Nielsen (22) in Beverly Hills, California; they divorce in 1987.
NFL Football:
The San Diego Chargers beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 20–14. Mark Hermann, subbing for the injured Dan Fouts, passed 33 yards to Charlie Joiner for the go-ahead San Diego touchdown. The victory lifted the Chargers to 8–7, and Philadelphia fell to 6–9. Both are out of playoff contention. Entering the game with San Diego trailing, 7–3, three minutes into the third quarter, Herrmann rallied the Chargers to a victory that gave them their sixth straight win at home. “When Dan goes down, everyone gasps,” Charger center Don Macek said. “But we have learned that Mark is a heckuva good quarterback and we can win if we play well. It’s different than it was against Cleveland. Mark seemed a lot looser and was having fun today.” Fouts, whose injury isn’t believed to be serious enough to keep him out of next week’s season finale at Kansas City, could have returned Sunday in an emergency, according to Charger Coach Don Coryell.
The Rams pummeled the Cardinals, 46–14. Dieter Brock passed for four touchdowns and Eric Dickerson ran for 124 yards and scored twice as Los Angeles clinched the N.F.C. Western Division. Los Angeles (11–4) broke the game open with a 36-point first half, as Dickerson rushed for more than 100 yards and scored on runs of 1 and 2 yards. Brock passed for touchdowns of 13 yards to Ron Brown, 47 yards to Tony Hunter, and 43 yards to Henry Ellard as the Rams’ 36-point half topped their previous high — 35 points — for an entire game this season. Brock, in danger of losing his starting job two weeks ago following a 29–3 loss to New Orleans, completed eight of 13 throws for 147 yards and the three scores in the first half. He added another touchdown in the third quarter on a 3-yard toss to Hunter, and finished the game with 13 completions in 20 attempts for 216 yards, with no interceptions.
In a fierce game between bitter rivals, the Los Angeles Raiders, on the strength of their defense, clinched the American Football Conference Western Division title today with a 13–3 victory over the Seattle Seahawks at the Los Angeles Coliseum. With tempers flaring from start to finish, the Raiders avenged last month’s 33–3 loss to the Seahawks with a punishing defense that held Seattle to 51 yards rushing. The defeat eliminated the Seahawks from playoff contention. The Raiders’ Marcus Allen, enjoying his eighth straight 100-yard game, scored the game’s only touchdown on a 7-yard run with 6 minutes 9 seconds to play. Allen ran over two defenders and carried a third into the end zone. “We needed 7 points on the board, not 3,” said Allen, who gained 68 of his 109 yards in the second half. “If we made a field goal, all Seattle needed was a touchdown to tie.” The Seahawks, who needed to win today and next week to have a chance at a playoff berth, responded to Allen’s touchdown by driving to midfield. Then a brawl erupted after an incomplete pass. Three players were ejected — Jeff Barnes and Rod Martin of the Raiders and Bryan Millard of the Seahawks. The Associated Press reported that Martin spat in the face of Millard in a tunnel leading to the locker rooms.
Joe Montana brought the offense alive in the second half to keep San Francisco’s playoff hopes alive, as the 49ers downed the Saints, 31–19. The 49ers (9–6) trailed by 9–7 at halftime, and Montana was under 50 percent in passing. In the second half, however, he was 12 for 14 for 204 yards and threw for two touchdowns. He finished with 25 completions in 38 attempts for 354 yards with a single interception and three touchdowns. The first-half touchdown came on a 25-yard pass from Montana to Dwight Clark with 4 minutes 35 seconds left in the second quarter. He hit Mike Wilson with a 52-yard scoring pass on the fourth play of the second half, then hit the tight end Russ Francis on a 17-yard touchdown pass 3:27 into the final quarter.
The Dallas Cowboys had their chances today and made the most of them. They scored two touchdowns within 46 seconds after a freakish interception and an aborted Giant punt. The Giants had their chances and did not make the most of them. The result was a 28–21 victory for the Cowboys that gave them the National Conference’s Eastern Division title. The Giants, instead of clinching a National Football League playoff berth, now must fight for their lives to gain a wild-card berth. The Cowboys and the Giants had been tied for the division lead. Now the Cowboys are 10–5 and the Giants have dropped to 9–6. The Giants have one regular-season game remaining, against the Pittsburgh Steelers next Saturday in Giants Stadium. If the Giants win, they will make the playoffs as the host team for the wild-card game. If they lose, they will make the playoffs if the Washington Redskins lose to the Cardinals in St. Louis or if the 49ers lose to the Cowboys in San Francisco. If the Giants lose, the Redskins win and the 49ers win, the Giants will be out. The crowd of 62,310 at Texas Stadium distracted the Giants by yelling when the Giants had the ball. As a result, on shotgun plays, Phil Simms, the Giants’ quarterback, lined up under the center rather than 5 yards back. The Giants knocked Danny White, the Cowboys’ quarterback, out of the game in the first quarter with a bruised left shoulder, and Gary Hogeboom replaced him. White returned in the second quarter, aggravated the injury and did not play the second half. Hogeboom suffered a concussion late in the third quarter after hits by Lawrence Taylor and Perry Williams and did not return. The Cowboys turned to their third-string quarterback, Steve Pelluer, and he led the 72-yard drive for a fourth-quarter touchdown that turned out to be the margin of victory. Pelluer had played only one previous play as a pro, when he held for a field goal last year.
Bernie Kosar passed for three touchdowns and ran for another today as the Cleveland Browns beat the Houston Oilers, 28–21, to take a one-game lead in the Central Division of the American Conference over Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Kosar completed 14 of 28 passes for 161 yards without an interception. His scoring tosses went to Ozzie Newsome, Fred Banks and Kevin Mack and the rookie quarterback ran 2 yards for a touchdown on a bootleg. The Browns (8–7) took an early 14–0 lead on Kosar’s first quarter run and his 2-yard scoring pass to Newsome early in the second period. The Oilers (5–10) came back to make it 14–7 by halftime on Mike Rozier burst up the middle for a 3-yard touchdown. Herman Fontenot, a rookie running back filling in because of an injury to the Browns’ regular kick returner, took the second-half kickoff and returned the ball to the Oiler 16-yard line. Two plays later, Kosar drilled an 8-yard touchdown pass to the Banks for a 21–7 Cleveland lead. Kosar then added a 5-yard touchdown throw to Mack to make it 28–7 midway through the period.
The Washington Redskins survived five fumbles and three disallowed touchdowns today to defeat the Cincinnati Bengals, 27–24, and keep alive their slim chances of qualifying for the National Football League playoffs. Boomer Esiason, the 24-year-old quarterback who played his college football at the University of Maryland, just a few miles from Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, kept the Bengals ahead for most of the game. At one time, Cincinnati led by 17 points behind Esiason’s passing and scrambling. He finished the game with 357 yards passing, showing an arm so strong that he could throw his left-handed passes far downfield while escaping pass rushers. The Bengals gave up the winning touchdown after losing the ball in the fourth quarter on a play that has looked good to generations of schoolboys who have drawn it on a dirt field. Leading by 24–20 in the fourth quarter, the Bengals tried their trick play, a multiple reverse. Esiason took the handoff from the center and gave the ball to the running back James Brooks, who handed it off to one wide receiver, Eddie Brown, who handed it off to another wide receiver, Cris Collinsworth. With all that, Collinsworth gained just a few yards, fumbled, and a Redskin defensive back, Barry Wilburn, recovered the ball. After a pass to the Washington receiver Art Monk, who set team single-game records with 13 receptions for 230 yards, the running back George Rogers ran up the middle for 34 yards and the winning touchdown. Rogers’s run did much to make amends for his three fumbles. He was starting for the second consecutive game in place of John Riggins.
The Colts beat the Buccaneers, 31–23. George Wonsley scored first-half touchdowns on runs of 7 and 3 yards and Mike Pagel and Albert Bentley added touchdown runs in the fourth quarter to lead Indianapolis. Pagel’s 2-yard quarterback keeper with 10:57 remaining capped a 67-yard drive by the Colts after the Buccaneers’ place-kicker, Donald Igwebuike, missed an extra point that would have given Tampa Bay (2–13) a 7-point lead 5 seconds into the final period. Raul Allegre’s point-after gave Indianapolis a 24–23 advantage and the Colts (4–11) put the game away when Bentley went 26 yards for a touchdown with 4:55 left.
Al Del Greco’s fourth field goal, a 27-yarder as time ran out, to lift Green Bay to a 26–23 victory over the host Detroit Lions. The Lions had tied the score at 23–23, with 1:01 remaining on a 30-yard pass from Joe Ferguson to Leonard Thompson, but Eddie Murray missed the extra point. Mike Douglass, a Packer linebacker, picked off Eric Hipple’s underthrown pass at the Packer 20-yard line and ran 80 yards to give Green Bay its first lead, 23–17, at 5:31 of the fourth quarter. The Lions (7–8) led by 17–6 at halftime on the strength of two 1-yard runs by Alvin Moore and a 19-yard field goal by Murray. But the Packers (7–8) came back on a 37-yard run by Gary Ellerson and a Del Greco field goal to pull to 17–16.
The Steelers downed the Bills, 30–24. Walter Abercrombie scored on a 2-yard run with 47 seconds to play as Scott Campbell led Pittsburgh back from a 21–0 deficit. Campbell, playing only because of first-half injuries to quarterbacks David Woodley and Mark Malone, threw 3 yards to Louis Lipps for a second-period touchdown and later set up Abercrombie’s deciding score with a 44-yard completion to Lipps. Buffalo (2–13) built a 21–0 first-half lead with the help of Greg Bell’s 77-yard scoring run on the first play from scrimmage and Don Wilson’s 61-yard return of a Lipps fumble for a touchdown. But the Bills could manage only a 24-yard Scott Norwood field goal in the second half as the Steelers (7–8) stormed back in whipping winds and 20-degree temperatures before 35,953 fans, the smallest crowd in their 16 seasons in Three Rivers Stadium.
The Falcons edged the Vikings, 14–13. Dan Benish set up a touchdown with a fumble recovery and later blocked a field goal as Atlanta won when Jan Stenerud missed a fourth-quarter extra-point attempt. Stenerud, who had one field goal blocked and missed on two other attempts, kicked wide to the right on his extra-point try after the Vikings (7–8) scored with 8:03 to play on Tommy Kramer’s 49-yard pass to Anthony Carter. The Falcons (3–12) took a 14–0 lead with two second-quarter touchdowns, the first a 34-yard pass from David Archer to Charlie Brown and the other on a 1-yard run by Joe Washington after Benish recovered Darrin Nelson’s fumble on the Minnesota 28. Atlanta’s Gerald Riggs, the league’s rushing leader with 1,548 yards going into the game, had only 13 yards on 10 carries before spraining his knee in the second quarter.
Philadelphia Eagles 14, San Diego Chargers 20
St. Louis Cardinals 14, Los Angeles Rams 46
Seattle Seahawks 3, Los Angeles Raiders 13
San Francisco 49ers 31, New Orleans Saints 19
New York Giants 21, Dallas Cowboys 28
Houston Oilers 21, Cleveland Browns 28
Cincinnati Bengals 24, Washington Redskins 27
Indianapolis Colts 31, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 23
Green Bay Packers 26, Detroit Lions 23
Buffalo Bills 24, Pittsburgh Steelers 30
Minnesota Vikings 13, Atlanta Falcons 14
Born:
Desmond Bryant, NFL defensive tackle (Oakland Raiders, Cleveland Browns), in Shorewood, Illinois.
Sheba Mason [Reiter], American comedian and daughter of Jackie Mason, in Miami, Florida.
History Diaries 