President Reagan sent a letter to Mikhail S. Gorbachev proposing that American and Soviet experts meet to discuss ways to improve the verification of agreements on underground nuclear tests. Administration officials said Mr. Reagan reiterated the Administration’s longstanding position that improved verification measures would allow the United States to ratify past threshold test ban treaties that limit the size of underground nuclear tests. Mr. Reagan also affirmed the United States’ refusal to join the Soviet Union in its current halt on underground testing, officials said. Moscow has said that its moratorium will lapse at the end of the year unless the United States joins in. In a report to Congress that was made public on Monday, President Reagan said the Soviet Union might have exceeded agreed limits in underground testing, though he said there were “verification uncertainties.” Some experts do not agree with this allegation. In October, a group of scientists chosen by the Pentagon recommended in a secret report that the United States alter its procedures for evaluating the yield of Soviet nuclear tests and lower its estimates of the size of Soviet underground explosions.
A veteran Soviet Politburo member lost his position as head of the Communist Party in the city of Moscow. The dismissal of Viktor V. Grishin, was seen by Western diplomats as a step in Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s campaign to consolidate his power by replacing senior officials with younger men. Mr. Grishin has served on the Politburo for nearly a quarter century, longer than any other current member. He was made a candidate, or nonvoting, member in 1961, under Nikita S. Khrushchev, rising to full member in 1971, under Leonid I. Brezhnev. Tass said that Mr. Grishin, who is 71 years old, was “relieved of the duties of First Secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee in connection with his retirement.” The city committee held a plenary meeting today, with Mr. Gorbachev present, the press agency said.
Tass said Boris N. Yeltsin, 54, a national party secretary for the construction industry, had been named to the Moscow city post, which is one of the most powerful regional party jobs. The incumbent has frequently been a member of the Politburo. The removal of Mr. Grishin was not unexpected. Since midsummer, the work of the Moscow city party has been subjected to increasing criticism in the press, and Mr. Grishin appeared to be on the defensive in recent months.
Democracy made gains around the world in 1985, but 40.4% of the earth’s population continues to live under oppression, Freedom House said in its annual report. The private, New York-based group, which monitors political rights and civil liberties, said: “Gains in freedom were evident in a number of countries in the Western Hemisphere.” The group listed Brazil, Uruguay, Grenada and El Salvador as places where gains in freedom occurred. But the group also reported that “in most of Africa… the condition of freedom was regarded as unpromising as ever.”
A prominent member of Sinn Fein, the outlawed Irish Republican Army’s legal political wing, and another man were ordered held in custody on weapons charges. Sinn Fein member Owen Carron, 32, a former member of the British Parliament, and James Gerard Maguire were arraigned in Enniskillen, in the southwestern part of Northern Ireland, on charges of possessing a rifle and ammunition. Carron was also charged with having information likely to be useful to terrorists. About 50 Sinn Fein supporters gathered on the sidewalk opposite the courthouse while the arraignment hearing was under way behind tight security.
Twenty Poles who traveled to West Germany on a Polish ferry defected and asked for asylum, a police spokesman said. The Poles arrived in the West German Baltic port of Travemuende and defected when their tour bus arrived in Hamburg, the spokesman said. Under a 1966 West German regulation, Poles and other East Europeans who flee to West Germany cannot be sent back. The rules governing treatment of other asylum seekers do not apply to them. Last year, about 1,000 Poles jumped ships in West German ports.
Protesters threw coins and shouted insults at the police today after the funeral of a retired Civil Guard general slain by suspected Basque separatists. Demonstrators also surrounded the car of the Civil Guard’s chief, General Jose Sainz de Santamaria, and tried to block its path before being dispersed. Retired General Juan Atares Pena, 67 years old, was shot dead Monday in Pamplona as he walked along a street near his house, the police said.
The latest effort by the Anglican Church to win the release of a group of American hostages in Lebanon ended without success today. Terry Waite, the special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, said he had held meetings with the group holding the Americans, but that “further steps” were required in negotiations for their release. Mr. Waite spoke in Beirut shortly before he returned to London, ending a five-day stay. Mr. Waite, a lay aide to Archbishop Robert Runcie, the Primate of the Church of England, reported that he had not seen the hostages but said he had received assurances that they were in good health. He said he had sent them Christmas messages from their families.
A Maronite Catholic bishop was injured when he fought off unidentified gunmen who tried to kidnap him in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, police reported. Bishop George Iskandar, the Maronite bishop of Zahlah, answered a knock on the gate of his bishopric and was assaulted by gunmen who tried to drag him into a car. Resisting, he was pistol-whipped and left unconscious in the street, police said. Zahlah is the main Christian town in the predominantly Shia Muslim Bekaa Valley. The incident followed a wave of kidnapings of Christians by Shias in West Beirut.
Iraq has acquired new weapons that will “surprise” the world, and it plans to use them against Iran in the stalemated Persian Gulf War, a Baghdad newspaper reported. The newspaper Al Qadisiyah quoted the Iraqi air force commander on the subject of the weapons but gave no details. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who visited Moscow recently, is believed to have won a promise of new weaponry. Iraq, meanwhile, reported that its warplanes struck a large vessel — believed to be an oil tanker — in the Persian Gulf and set fire to Iran’s oil export terminal at Kharg Island. A military spokesman said the Iraqi raiders “pounded Kharg facilities with a hail of bombs.” They scored effective hits on the naval target, he added.
The Tehran radio reported tonight that Iranian planes attacked Iraqi positions near al-Amarah, on the southern Gulf war front. They inflicted “heavy losses and casualties” before returning safely to base, according to the radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
A 32-year-old former student agitator who served a prison term and was once in hiding from the police was sworn in today as the new Chief Minister of the troubled northeastern Indian state of Assam. Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, the new Chief Minister, was chosen for the post earlier this week after pledging to enforce an accord of last August that calls for the disenfranchisement or expulsion of more than a million immigrants in the state. His inauguration was attended today by some political leaders who oppose the Assam accord and who fear a renewal of violence if it is put into effect.
Fifty Vietnamese refugees were slain and 10 women were raped last week when their boat was intercepted by pirates in the South China Sea, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said today. The victims were among a group of 80 refugees who fled Vietnam for Malaysia on December 12, the spokesman, Leon Davico, said. Twenty-nine survivors, mostly women and children, sailed into Malaysia and requested asylum there Thursday, he said, two days after the pirates attacked the refugees and left their boat adrift. Another survivor was rescued by Malaysian fishermen.
Chinese Catholics jammed a consecration ceremony that marked the reopening of the Beitang Church in Peking, possibly the most historic structure of Christianity in China. The church was closed in 1958 after Chinese Catholics were forced to sever their ties to the Vatican. Elderly worshipers were tearful as the Bishop of Peking, Michael Fu Tieshan, spoke from the altar about the twin-spired edifice “returning to the arms of the church.” The consecration ceremony was followed at midnight by the Christmas mass, once again sung in Latin, with a still larger congregation spilling out into a courtyard. Winston Lord, the United States Ambassador, and his wife Bette, joined 4,000 other worshipers in singing “Silent Night,” “O Come All Ye Faithful” and other carols.
Chinese officials said today that a Soviet jetliner with about 50 people aboard was hijacked to China over the weekend. There was no word on whether the plane was still in the country or on the fate of the passengers. The aircraft was reported to have landed at Hailar, a city of about 100,000 people in Inner Mongolia about 70 miles from the Soviet border.
The Philippine Government elections commission today granted an American-backed civic organization the right to station observers at the country’s 90,000 polling stations during the presidential election scheduled for February 7. Jose Concepcion, the chairman of the civic organization, the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections, said the decision was the “best Christmas gift” the commission could give to Filipinos. Meanwhile, the United Nationalist Democratic Organization, the party of the opposition candidate, Corazon C. Aquino, and her running mate, Salvador Laurel, announced the “first major defection” from the ruling New Society Movement of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Felicisimo San Luis, Governor of Laguna Province, south of Manila, and a former member of the ruling party, formally joined the opposition party today.
The election commission’s decision came after a second day of hearings that centered on the finances of the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections, charges that some of its 500,000 volunteers were biased toward Mr. Marcos’s opponents and allegations that the group was supported by the Central Intelligence Agency. The group’s work during parliamentary elections in May 1984 was acclaimed by church leaders and United States officials for contributing to what was regarded as relatively honest balloting in which the opposition made significant gains.
The Honduran government has reversed its earlier position and will allow participants in a caravan for peace in Central America to travel through Honduras on their way to Mexico, organizers announced. “Through the Honduran Embassy in Managua (Nicaragua), we received a telex from the president telling us the march is authorized,” march organizer Torill Eide of Norway said of a message he received from Honduran President Roberto Suazo Cordova. There was no explanation for the change in policy. The more than 200 participants from 20 nations in the “International March for Peace in Central America” plan to enter Honduras on Saturday.
Nicaraguan Government leaders have been meeting privately with prominent opposition figures as part of a new peace initiative sponsored by Spain’s Socialist Government, participants in the talks said this week. The talks are aimed ultimately at ending the armed conflict that has taken the lives of more than 15,000 Nicaraguans over the last four years. Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez of Spain was said to be backing the initiative out of concern that the four-nation peace effort known as Contadora was faltering, and that no other mechanism existed to promote dialogue among political factions within Nicaragua. “There was a feeling that Contadora was reaching a dead end, and Spain decided to step into the vacuum,” said a European diplomat close to the current talks.
The Salvadoran Government agreed today to a holiday cease-fire through January 2. The cease-fire was previously approved by the leftist rebels. A statement from the office of President Jose Napoleon Duarte said: “On the basis of Christmas spirit and the request of the Salvadoran Catholic Church, the Government of the republic decided to suspend offensive actions of the armed forces during the Christmas period.” But the statement said the army would “remain vigilant” during the 10-day truce, which began today, because it had a “constitutional obligation to watch over public security.” The cease-fire, proposed Sunday by Arturo Rivera y Damas, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador, was immediately accepted by the rebels. Cease-fires for Christmas and New Year’s have been traditional in El Salvador’s six-year-old civil war, but the Government’s acceptance today came as a surprise.
An effort to revive Peru is being made by its new President, Alan Garcia Perez in a series of speeches to all segments of the population, frequently from the balcony of the presidential palace. The Social Democrat already dominates Peru as no other President has done since General Juan Velasco Alvarado brought sweeping changes in the late 1960’s.
A spokesman for the African National Congress said today in Lusaka, Zambia that a suspected South African agent was shot dead as he tried to kidnap a member of the group last weekend. Two other agents fled, leaving a truck behind in the raid early Saturday morning, he added. The shooting was the second violent incident in Lusaka this month involving the Congress, which has its headquarters here and is banned in South Africa.
A few days ago, South Africa’s Government-run radio had two events to report: the killing of six whites in a land-mine explosion near the border of Zimbabwe and the deaths of several blacks in a bus accident. Referring to the whites, the radio seemed to suspend the nation’s normal racial classifications, and referred to them simply as “people.” By contrast, it drew a distinction in describing the bus accident, saying those who had died were blacks, as if that somehow softened the tragedy. After decades of rule by racial distinction, the varying descriptions come as no surprise here. But, after a fatal bomb attack Monday in the white seaside resort of Amanzimtoti, just south of Durban, the racial demarcation — a demarcation, in South Africa as elsewhere, not simply of color but of profound prejudice and attitude — seems to have assumed harsher implications.
Federal funds for full-time guards for certain ambassadors stationed in Washington will be requested by the Reagan Administration next month, a State Department official said. Robert E. Lamb, director of the department’s new Bureau of Diplomatic Security, said about 10 ambassadors would be eligible for the bodyguards. The official said the move grew out of the Administration’s concern over what it regards as threats to the safety of some foreign ambassadors here. Robert E. Lamb, the director of the department’s newly formed Bureau of Diplomatic Security, said in an interview that he expected about 10 envoys to be eligible for bodyguards at any one time, but that the number would fluctuate depending on the actual threats. Mr. Lamb said threats had been made against certain ambassadors, but he declined to be specific.
President Reagan places phone calls to 5 enlisted men stationed around the world, one from each branch of the military.
President Reagan spends Christmas Eve with family and friends.
Soviet agents received portions of a transcript of a top secret Congressional hearing on military communications from a messenger employed by a court reporting company in Washington, Federal prosecutors charged. Congressional sources said the hearing included a report on a wide array of military communications systems, including an airplane designed to relay orders to nuclear missile submarines. On the basis of the new testimony provided by a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, a Federal magistrate ruled that the prosecutors had “just barely” succeeded in overcoming a motion by defense lawyers to dismiss the charges against the messenger, Randy Miles Jeffries.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture John R. Norton said in Washington that he may resign because of conflict-of-interest rules that would prevent him from enrolling his large Western farming operations in next year’s federal crop support programs. Norton, who has been at the Agriculture Department less than a year, said that his family farm corporation in Arizona and California could lose as much as $1 million if it is barred from participating in federal programs next year.
New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo, acting on a Christmas Eve plea from Mother Teresa, released three prison inmates with AIDS into the care of the Nobel Peace Prize winner. The inmates, all serving time at Sing Sing state prison on robbery convictions, were transferred to St. Clare’s Hospital in New York City on medical furloughs, said state Corrections Commissioner Thomas Coughlin. Mother Teresa, a Roman Catholic nun who has earned worldwide praise for her work with the poor in India, met the inmates during a visit to the prison.
Farmers holding a vigil in the rotunda of the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, to focus attention on their plight urged Governor Anthony S. Earl to support a moratorium on farm foreclosures. The governor rejected the plea, saying such a move would reduce credit for other farmers. Earl assured the protesting farmers that he would carry their message and recommendations to a meeting Friday with other Midwest governors in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Artificial heart recipient Mary Lund, 40, remained unconscious in a Minneapolis hospital but doctors were encouraged after finding that her other organs were not damaged irreversibly when a suspected virus destroyed her own heart last week. Lund, the first woman to receive an artificial heart, “still exhibits reflex response,” said Dr. Fredarick Gobel, spokesman for the heart implant team at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. Lund was listed in critical but stable condition. The woman, given less than a 50-50 chance to survive since receiving an artificial heart last week, should have had the operation sooner, her doctors said today. The patient, Mary Lund, the first woman to receive an artificial heart, has been unable to open her eyes since the miniature Jarvik-7 was implanted, doctors said.
The Detroit branch of the N.A.A.C.P. has called a boycott against Dearborn businesses because the mostly white Detroit suburb reneged on an agreement that would have permitted nonresidents to use its parks. Some officials had said Dearborn would temporarily suspend enforcement of an ordinance that barred nonresidents from most of its parks, but Mayor John O’Reilly refused to sign the agreement. Opponents said the ordinance, approved November 5 by Dearborn voters, was aimed at keeping Detroit’s blacks from using city parks. The Rev. Charles Adams, president of the Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, announced details of the boycott at a news conference Monday.
San Francisco will be a sanctuary for refugees from Central America if a resolution that received preliminary approval is passed a second time and is signed by Mayor Dianne Feinstein. The Board of Supervisors approved the resolution, 8 to 3, and also gave preliminary approval to an ordinance that would prevent San Francisco from dealing with businesses with links to South Africa. Neither measure can take effect before a second reading in two weeks, after which Mayor Dianne Feinstein will decide whether to sign them.
Splotches of oil from a 21-mile slick drifted into a sensitive wildlife area near Port Angeles, Washington, and briefly threatened to invade oyster beds and crab-feeding areas. Tides carried some of the 109,200 gallons spilled Saturday by the tanker ARCO Anchorage onto the beaches of Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, but the environmental impact on the sanctuary had not yet been determined. Dozens of volunteers were spending tonight in a makeshift rescue center caring for hundreds of ailing sea birds caught in an oil spill in Port Angeles Harbor. About 800 oil-soaked grebes, guillemots, mergansers, scaups, scoters and other species of waterfowl have been bathed, blow-dried and put on a special high-protein diet at the bird rescue center at Port Angeles High School.
The Environmental Protection Agency confirmed Monday that it had refiled a proposed rule to curb the production and use of asbestos despite efforts by White House budget officers to transfer its regulatory power to other agencies. The proposed rule was submitted December 13 to the Office of Management and Budget, said Dave Ryan, a spokesman for the environmental agency.
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Washingtonian Magazine did not libel an air traffic controller when it reported the government conclusion that he had been partially responsible for a fatal airliner crash even though he had been cleared of negligence in a private lawsuit. A three-judge appeals court panel upheld the decision of U.S. District Judge Harold H. Greene in the case involving Merle W. Dameron.
The Army’s reserve forces are showing new vigor after years of neglect, according to Army officials. But in the next breath the officials acknowledge that the reserves have far to go before they would be ready for wartime missions. The most important development, said William D. Clark, a deputy assistant secretary of the Army, is that officers and senior sergeants in the regular Army have accepted the role of the reserves. “Finally the thought has sunk in,” he said, “that these people are going to fight alongside us in a war.”
Jurors who assessed more than $49 million in damages against a chemical company had “no question” that emissions from the company’s plant had poisoned 31 residents of Sedalia, Missouri, the jury foreman said. Most of the jury’s four days of deliberations concerned how much to assess Alcolac Inc., Larry Love, the jury foreman, said after the verdict was reached Monday night. Alcolac produces chemicals used in shampoos, cleansers, plastics and paints at the plant, which opened in 1978. The Maryland-based company was sued in 1981 for $310 million by 31 people living in Sedalia who contended that they suffered from nausea, headaches, skin problems and numbness. The jury awarded $200,000 in actual damages and $1,387,096 in punitive damages to each plaintiff.
Silicon Valley is turning out toys for amusement and profit. A talking teddy bear designed in the California center of the electronics industry is one of the hit Christmas toys. Entrepreneurs and whiz kids are designing toys for others or are hoping to start their own companies.
Around the nation, municipal and state governments say they are working harder than ever to shelter and help the thousands of homeless men, women and children in their midst. Still, advocates for the homeless say, the response is not keeping pace with the demand. Even before the onset of winter, many areas of the nation were reporting a sharp increase in people seeking shelter, particularly women with children. Estimates of the number of homeless people range anywhere from 500,000 to three million, and, according to the National Coalition on the Homeless, at least 40 mayors have announced with regret that their cities had become the mecca for homeless people. Now that temperatures in much of the country have begun to reach life-threatening levels, the plight of the homeless has become the focus for a variety of emergency responses.
Kurt Peterson, a reactor operator on a Trident nuclear submarine based in Bremerton, Washington, spent Monday night sleeping on a bunk in the U.S.O. at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. His midnight plane to his home in Chicago had been canceled by the fog that has hung over Seattle for most of the last eight days. “I’ll miss Christmas Eve dinner with my family tonight,” he said, glancing up from the Bible in which he was reading St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. “I’ve been watching the fog roll in and out.”
Holiday travelers in the upper Great Lakes area battled blizzard conditions and frustrated fliers in Seattle were fogged in for an eighth day, but cloud seeding cleared skies over Reno and planes resumed flying. The Reno-Cannon, Nevada, International Airport had been fogged in since Saturday with about 2,000 travelers stranded. Frigid arctic air continued to spill out of Canada into the northern and central Plains, pushing temperatures well below zero and sending wind chills down to more than 70 below zero. Heavy snow swept Michigan’s Upper Peninsula along the Lake Superior shore, where 12 to 18 inches of snow was expected overnight.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1519.15 (-9.63)
Born:
Andrew Romine, MLB shortstop, third baseman, and second baseman (Los Angeles Angels, Detroit Tigers, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers, Chicago Cubs), in Winter Haven, Florida.
Nick Johnson, Canadian NHL right wing (Pittsburgh Penguins, Minnesota Wild, Phoenix Coyotes, Boston Bruins), in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Ogemdi Nwagbuo, NFL defensive tackle (San Diego Chargers, Carolina Panthers, Detroit Lions), in San Diego, California.
James Hardy, NFL wide receiver (Buffalo Bills), in Fort Wayne, Indiana (d. 2017, by suicide).
David Ragan, American race car driver, in Unadilla, Georgia.
Died:
Ferhat Abbas, 86, Algerian politician and President of the National Constituent Assembly of Algeria (1962-1963).
History Diaries 