A government report on compliance by the Soviet Union with arms control treaties was called unbalanced by experts outside the Reagan Administration. The report charges the Soviet Union with nine violations, but also drops some previous allegations and modifies others. One of the critics, Spurgeon M. Keeny Jr., a former deputy director of the Arms Control and Disarmanent Agency and the head of the Arms Control Association, said today that the report was an “unbalanced assessment of the compliance issue.” “The report ignores the fact that for the most part the Soviet Union is clearly in compliance with existing agreements,” he said. Another critic, Michael Krepon, who is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a specialist on verification issues, also faulted the treatment of the compliance issue.
The edited version of the U.S. Government report says that the Soviet Union has violated a commitment not to increase the number of strategic bombers and missile launchers that it had when it signed the second strategic arms limitations treaty in 1979. The number of launchers was then 2,504. Mr. Krepon said that the report failed to mention that the Soviet Union had taken steps to dismantle SS-11 missile launchers and Bison bombers in line with its commitment. Administration officials said these actions were dealt with in the secret version of the report. They said that even if these actions were taken into account, the Soviet Union would still be slightly over the 2,504 limit because the United States does not accept the Soviet argument that some old Bison bombers have been converted into aerial refueling tankers. The United States and the Soviet Union were supposed to work out procedures for the dismantling of bombers under the 1979 treaty, but this work was not completed by a joint commission established for that purpose. Officials said that General Richard H. Ellis, the American representative on the commission, had sought the authority to complete the work, but that the authority had not been granted.
President Reagan meets with Secretary of Commerce Howard Malcolm Baldrige to discuss the Secretary’s recent meeting with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev today received Li Peng, a Chinese Deputy Prime Minister, who was stopping over on his way home from a visit to Czechoslovakia and Rumania. It was the highest-level meeting between the two countries since July, when another Chinese Deputy Prime Minister, Yao Yilin, was in Moscow.
A retired Civil Guard general was slain today in Pamplona, and the police said they suspected Basque terrorists. The retired general, Juan Atares Pena, was approached by two men and a woman as he was walking in a park near his home and was shot and instantly killed, the police said. The assailants escaped in a car. By tonight, no one had taken responsibility for the attack, but the police said it appeared to have been carried out by the Basque separatist terrorist group E.T.A. The police said the killing appeared to be revenge for the death eight days ago of a Basque who had been in the custody of the Civil Guard. The handcuffed body of the Basque, Mikel Zabaltza, who police believed to be an E.T.A. collaborator, was found floating in a river in Navarre Province, of which Pamplona is the capital.
A tiny ultra-Orthodox Jewish party submitted a motion of no confidence in the Israeli government over its allowing the construction of a Mormon study center near Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives. Prime Minister Shimon Peres’ government is expected to easily defeat the parliamentary motion, proposed by the two-seat Agudat Israel Party. But Israel’s fragile national-unity coalition depends on small religious parties for its support. Some Orthodox Jews fear that the center, a $15-million facility of Utah’s Brigham Young University, will be used to convert Jews to the Mormon faith.
Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat must find a way to recognize Israel soon or risk losing Jordan’s support, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said. In an interview on NBC-TV’s “Today” show, Mubarak said it is crucial for the peace process that Arafat accept U.N. resolutions 242 and 338, which implicitly acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. Arafat has pledged to seek a way to accept the two resolutions, Mubarak said. However, senior Arafat aide Abu Iyad said in Kuwait that “we strongly reject” Resolution 242. For more than a week now, Mr. Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, has been expected in Amman at the invitation of King Hussein, who wants to try again to obtain Mr. Arafat’s commitment to the crucial United Nations Resolution 242. The United States has said Mr. Arafat’s endorsement of the measure is a step vital to the success of peace negotiations.
Efforts by a French Government team here to win the freedom of four Frenchmen held by Muslim extremists ended in failure today, the negotiators said. The development came as the British mediator Terry Waite was reported to be trying to persuade the kidnappers to let him meet on Christmas Eve with four American hostages known to be still alive. Mr. Waite, the special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been trying to gain the release of the Americans. The two-member French delegation, consisting of a Lebanese-born cardiologist, Dr. Razah Raad, and a diplomat, Pierre Blouin, returned to Paris after five days in Lebanon.
Pope John Paul II, acting on a request from the Government of Iran, sent an envoy to Tehran today with a Christmas “message of prayer and human solidarity” for Iraqi prisoners of war. Vatican sources called the mission a significant step toward warmer relations between the Roman Catholic Church and fundamentalist Muslims. Negotiations are under way for a similar visit to Iranian soldiers held by Iraq, a Vatican spokesman said. Vatican sources said it was considered possible that the papal aide, Roger Cardinal Etchegaray, would meet with Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, during his two- to three-day visit.
A Hindu farm worker was killed and at least three people were injured when a bomb believed planted by Sikh extremists exploded in a crowded marketplace in the Hindu-dominated town of Khanna, 50 miles from Chandigarh, capital of the Indian state of Punjab, police said. Authorities said that several shops in Khanna were damaged.
Five Tamil separatist guerrillas were killed and 600 suspects arrested in a sweep by security forces in the Sri Lankan town of Akkaraippttu, a Defense Ministry spokesman said. The spokesman denied a rebel claim that government forces attacked Tamil villages, causing heavy casualties. He also denied a claim by separatist leader A. S. Balasingam that government agents and the Israeli secret service planted a bomb that damaged his apartment in Madras, India, where he is living in exile. Israeli agents are reportedly advising the Sri Lankan government on anti-insurgency tactics.
Another student protest has been carried into the heart of the Chinese capital despite official efforts to bar a repetition of earlier demonstrations. The latest protest march, by 200 to 300 students, went Sunday from Tiananmen Square to the nearby Zhongnanhai compound, where Chinese leaders have their homes and offices. The students, from the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, presented a list of demands that included a call for a halt to atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Xinjiang includes China’s nuclear testing grounds of Lop Nor.
Philippines President Ferdinand E. Marcos said that military security has been approved for Corazon Aquino, his opponent in the February 7 presidential election. One of those. assigned, Captain Ramon Gutierrez, is an officer from the Aviation Security Command, the unit responsible for protecting Aquino’s husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., when he was assassinated at Manila airport in 1983. Marcos said the candidate requested the protection, but her spokeswoman denied this. Earlier, Aquino said she would not accept military security.
France and the environmentalist group Greenpeace agreed today to negotiate the amount of damages the French Government owes the group for sinking its flagship, both sides said. “Under the agreement, Greenpeace and France will negotiate in good faith to settle the amount of damages France owes Greenpeace as a result of this event,” David McTaggart, the ecology group’s chairman, said in a statement today. “The only issue to be adjudicated will be the amount of the damages France must pay to Greenpeace,” the statement said.
Leftist rebels agreed to observe a 10-day holiday cease-fire in El Salvador on condition that the armed forces accept the truce. Civilian officials and members of the army’s high command met to consider acceptance of the cease-fire, to run from today until January 2. Government sources indicated it was likely to be rejected. The truce was proposed by Roman Catholic Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas.
Jose Azcona Hoyo, a 58-year-old civil engineer, was officially declared the winner of presidential elections held November 24 in Honduras. He is to be inaugurated January 27 for a four-year term, succeeding Roberto Suazo Cordova. The National Election Tribunal said Azcona’s Liberal Party had 786,594 votes to 701,406 votes for the second-place National Party. Under the election rules, this gave the presidency to Azcona, even though he was outpolled individually by the National Party candidate.
The Reagan Administration’s efforts to sound out Congress about the prospects for restoring military aid to Nicaraguan rebels have drawn negative responses over the last several weeks, according to some key legislators. “My perception is that at this stage it would be very difficult for them to get military assistance,” Representative Dave McCurdy, Democrat of Oklahoma, said today. Mr. McCurdy, who played a leading role in fashioning the $27 million nonmilitary aid package approved last July, added, “I think there could be a continuance of humanitarian aid.”
A Nicaraguan Army pilot deserted during a routine mission today and flew to neighboring Honduras where he asked for asylum, a military official said. Sub-Lieut. Salvador Blanco Lacayo, 23 years old, surrendered to the Honduran authorities immediately upon landing at Toncontin International Airport outside this Central American capital, according to the official. He said Lieutenant Blanco was the sole occupant of the twin-engine AN-2 supply plane, and that he turned over two Soviet-made AK-47 rifles. Honduran Air Force fighter planes chased the Lieutenant’s Polish-built aircraft after it entered Honduran air space, forcing it to land at 4:45 PM, the official said.
A Government prosecutor said today that he would appeal a civilian court’s decision this month to acquit four former military rulers on charges of extensive human rights abuses. The prosecutor, Julio Strassera, said he would also ask the court to reconsider the sentences of three officers who received prison terms ranging from 4 ½ to 17 years. Mr. Strassera said in a telephone interview that these penalties were too light.
An American foreign aid official said today that the United States had accounts from witnesses of “shocking” conditions in two resettlement villages in Gojjam Province in western Ethiopia, suggesting “a vast human tragedy of historical proportions.” M. Peter McPherson, Administrator of the Agency for International Development, reported that “hundreds have already died,” beginning in March, in the villages in the swampy Pawe area, about 150 miles northwest of Addis Ababa. Death was due mainly to malaria, typhus and other diseases, he said. The two villages, designated Pawe 5 and Pawe 7, have a total population of 1,000.
A bomb exploded at a shopping mall in a white resort in Durban, South Africa, killing at least six white people, three of them children. South Africa’s Minister of Law and Order, Louis Le Grange, said he blamed the African National Congress for the blast, and he accused the rebel organization of deliberately hitting what he called soft targets. The attack was the third against whites in South Africa in eight days and seemed to represent an increase in the readiness of the government’s foes to offer violent challenge to apartheid. In the nation’s crisis, spanning 15 months of violent protest and repression, only a handful of the 1,000 dead have been whites.
The State Department said today that the United States had protested to the South African Government over the arrest of Winnie Mandela on Sunday. A department spokesman, Charles E. Redman, said, “We are concerned that Mrs. Mandela’s arrest could led to further escalation of violence in South Africa.” There was a bombing in a white shopping mall south of Durban today, and Mr. Redman said that “in that connection, we can only condemn another bombing aimed at civilians, this time in Durban.” “We call on all parties in South Africa to move toward negotiations and not confrontation,” he said.
A twin-engine light plane crashes into the Sunvalley Shopping Center after failing a landing attempt at nearby airfield in Concord, California; 7 people die, 77 injured, and $3.5 million in damage to the mall. The twin-engine Beechcraft Baron crashed into the roof of Macy’s at the Sunvalley Shopping Center in Concord, during a missed approach to nearby Buchanan Field, killing three people on the plane and four on the ground amidst holiday shoppers, injuring dozens more, and causing significant fire and structural damage due to pilot disorientation in heavy fog. The plane crashed into the Sunvalley Mall northeast of San Francisco about 8:45 PM, said Darlene Holden, a Concord police officer. Witnesses said many shoppers panicked when the plane crashed into the mall, sending debris flying through a skylight next to the Emporium Capwell department store. The shopping mall was crowded with children waiting to see Santa Claus. One of those killed was a 14-month-old boy.
President Reagan signs the Food Security Act of 1985. The costliest farm bill in the nation’s history was signed by President Reagan, who said he sought to “help put America’s farmers back in a competitive position in world markets.” He also signed a rescue package for the troubled Farm Credit System, the nation’s largest farm lender. Mr. Reagan, who had once threatened to veto the bill, said today that he did not fully embrace it, largely because it was so expensive. He said, however, that it “provides new hope for America’s hard-working farmers and our rural communities.” “If things are not going well down on the farm, things cannot continue to go well in our cities and towns,” he said.
The Federal Reserve was attacked by the Reagan Administration for proposing to limit the use of below-investment-grade bonds in corporate takeovers. The Administration, displeased by what it considers an attempt to slow the rash of corporate takeovers, severely criticized the bond proposal in a public comment filed with the central bank. Major Federal agencies questioned the Federal Reserve’s authority to apply margin requirement rules to takeovers financed with so-called junk bonds.
The Council on Foreign Relations, one of the nation’s most influential private groups for the study of international affairs, named a former diplomat as its new president yesterday. The announcement of the appointment of the former diplomat, Peter Tarnoff, made after the group’s Board of Directors approved the recommendation of a selection committee, concluded a six-month search. Council officials said 75 candidates had been considered, including Robert C. McFarlane, who resigned December 4 as President Reagan’s national security adviser. Mr. Tarnoff’s appointment comes at a time when the Council, whose 2,400 members include government officials, scholars and business and banking leaders, is reconsidering its role and is seeking to broaden its membership. Council officials said that they expected Mr. Tarnoff to contribute to that effort.
A judge said she would dismiss espionage charges against a Washington messenger unless prosecutors produced additional evidence at a preliminary hearing scheduled for today. The Federal magistrate, Jean F. Dwyer, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s sworn statement in support of charges against the suspect, Randy Miles Jeffries, that he attempted to sell documents to the Soviet Union, was “as thin an affidavit as it has been my misfortune to see in many years.”
Four fugitives who vowed they would never be taken alive after a bold helicopter escape from a South Carolina prison were surrounded when sleeping in a stolen car at a Georgia rest stop by three cruisers of police officers and recaptured, Camden County Sheriff’s Sgt. Charlie Easterling said. The fugitives surrendered peacefully. The three convicts and a woman who allegedly hijacked a helicopter Thursday to help them break out of the Perry Correctional Institution near Pelzer, South Carolina, were turned over to federal authorities.
A U.S. district judge who chastised the federal government for paying too little of the cost of desegregating Chicago’s public schools ordered the Department of Education to give the city up to $88 million. Attorneys for the school board and the federal government differed on how much the city would get but both sides said they had reached an agreement for the board to get $5.7 million while the ruling is appealed. Bob Saigh of the school board said: “Whatever the amount…it is welcome.”
Louisiana Attorney General William Guste said in New Orleans that he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether Louisiana may require its public schools to teach creation science-the biblical theory of creation-alongside evolution. A 1981 law that would have done so was struck down by a federal judge in January, and his decision was upheld by a federal appeals panel in July. The law was never implemented.
Tapes from FBI wiretaps used to obtain a fraud indictment against former Labor Secretary Raymond J. Donovan may be used in his trial, New York State Supreme Court Justice John Collins ruled. The decision follows a two-month hearing to determine whether the tapped conversations of officials of Schiavone Construction Co., where Donovan formerly was employed, could be used as evidence. Donovan is not heard on the tapes but is mentioned frequently. Donovan and other Schiavone officials are accused of fraud in a $7.4-million subway construction project.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it will hold a hearing to investigate document falsification at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but barred any discussion of whether top plant managers knew about the action. Over the objections of two NRC members, the commission set ground rules that sharply limit what issues may be addressed in a “legislative format” hearing into improprieties at TMI’s Unit No. 2 reactor, which was badly damaged on March 28, 1979, in the nation’s worst commercial nuclear accident.
Donations to the Salvation Army have jumped in the last week, in part because of publicity about decreased donations coupled with increased demand for aid, a spokesman said. “Because of the added publicity, the funds are starting to come in at a much quicker pace than the week before,” Lieutenant Colonel Leon Ferraez, the Salvation Army’s national communications director, said from the group’s headquarters in Verona, New Jersey. “The people have been responding magnificently,” he said. “I just don’t think anyone is going to be turned away.”
Sweeping changes in AIDS treatment being developed by New York health officials will emphasize hospice care and home and outpatient services instead of long and costly hospitalization. The regulations will be proposed to the State Hospital Review and Planning Council in January.
An urgent search for an AIDS remedy is going on in laboratories in the United States and abroad. With little fanfare, scientists have found several drugs that are active against the AIDS virus in the test tube and have identified chinks in the virus’s armor that appear worth pursuing.
A man who held a pistol to a nurse’s throat and ordered her to disconnect his comatose father’s life support system had promised his father “not to let him linger,” relatives said. The son, Edward T. Baker, surrendered Saturday after the machines were shut off and he was sure his father, Edward C. Baker, 69 years old, was dead, officers said. The father, suffering from cancer, had been in a coma at Brookside Hospital in San Pablo, California since December 11. Mr. Baker was being held for arraignment Tuesday.
Holiday travelers found the going rough, with up to six inches of snow covering roads in the Northeast and heavy fog still shrouding parts of the West, delaying Christmas mail and forcing flight cancellations in Reno, Nevada, and Seattle. The Reno Cannon International Airport was closed after heavy fog had canceled about 100 flights the day before. A new arctic air mass moving in from Canada promised to put the northern half of the country in the deep freeze for Christmas, and light snow covered New England
Most children believe in Santa Claus, and they have an individual picture of him, according to a poll of children 3 through 10 years old. The youngest children were the more likely to believe. Santa was real to every 3-year-old, but only two-thirds of the 10-year-olds said they believed.
NFL Monday Night Football:
Marcus Allen ran for 123 yards to win the National Football League rushing title, and Chris Bahr kicked three field goals tonight as the Los Angeles Raiders scored a 16–6 victory over the Los Angeles Rams. The victory closed the Raiders’ regular season with a 12–4 record, and the American Football Conference’s Western Division champions assured themselves the home field throughout their conference playoffs. The Rams, champions in the N.F.C. West, wound up the regular season at 11–5, and already were assured the home-field advantage for their playoff opener. Allen, a former Heisman Trophy winner in his fourth professional season, carried 24 times to win the league’s rushing title for the first time. He also became the first Raider to lead the N.F.L. in rushing. Allen also set a league record for total yards from scrimmage — rushing and receiving — in one season with 2,314, breaking the Rams’ Eric Dickerson’s 1984 mark of 2,244 yards. In addition, Allen star tied Walter Payton’s league record with his ninth consecutive 100-yard rushing game. Bahr booted field goals of 27 and 51 yards in the second quarter as the Raiders took a 6–3 halftime lead, then hit on a 29-yarder five minutes into the final quarter. The Raiders opened up some breathing room on a 21-yard touchdown pass from Marc Wilson to Dokie Williams with 3 minutes 20 seconds remaining in the game. The Rams’ scoring came on Mike Lansford’s 52-yard field goal in the second quarter and his 40-yard kick in the third period.
Los Angeles Raiders 16, Los Angeles Rams 6
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1528.78 (-14.22)
Born:
Luke O’Loughlin, Australian actor (“Chuck Finn”, “Escape of the Artful Dodger”), in Adelaide, Australia.
Harry Judd, British drummer (McFly), in Chelmsford, England, United Kingdom.
Jordan Shipley, NFL wide receiver (Cincinnati Bengals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jacksonville Jaguars), in Burnet, Texas.
History Diaries 