Grudging support for “Star Wars” is growing steadily among America’s major allies in Western Europe. Officials, business representatives and military experts say this has been occurring despite the continued reservations in Western Europe about the technical feasibility of President Reagan’s space-based missile defense program, and its effect on traditional concepts of nuclear deterrence and stability. This month Britain and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding outlining the principles of participation by British companies in the research program. West Germany decided on December 18 to negotiate an agreement with the United States that would help its companies take part in the five-year, $26 billion research program, formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative and popularly known as “Star Wars,” and ease the transfer of resulting technology to that country. The two agreements leave France as the only leading European country that is theoretically hostile and unwilling to support the interests of its industrial companies in becoming part of the research effort.
The Soviet Union today rejected Washington’s charges that Moscow had failed to comply with arms control agreements and said the United States was itself guilty of violations. Moscow charged that Washington had circumvented the 1972 antiballistic missile treaty and the 1979 strategic arms limitation treaty. The Soviet charges were presented in the form of a statement by Tass, the Government press agency, and were repeated by senior Government officials at a news conference. Two of the officials, Vladimir B. Lomeiko, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, and Lieut. Gen. Viktor P. Starodubov, head of an unidentified department in the Soviet general staff, said an underground nuclear test in Nevada on Saturday violated the terms of the 1972 ABM treaty.
A Soviet woman arrived in the U.S. to be reunited with the American husband she married in Estonia in 1979 but has not seen since 1981. Helle Frejus, the first of eight Russian spouses to have been given permission by Moscow to live in the United States arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Airport en route to Los Angeles, where her husband, Kazimierz Frejus, lives. She flew to Baltimore today aboard a World Airways DC-10 en route to Los Angeles for a reunion with her 82-year-old husband, Kazimierz Frejus. Mrs. Frejus, who is 50 years old, is one of 10 people with American ties living in the Soviet Union who were told in November that they would get formal permission to live in the United States. The announcement that the 10 divided family cases — eight of them involving Soviet- and American-born spouses -would be resolved came just before the summit meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, in Geneva in November.
Some 10,000 worshipers at a Warsaw church applauded a priest today who denounced Poland’s Communist rulers and praised the banned Solidarity labor union. The priest, the Rev. Jan Sikorski, called the Solidarity period “a time of joy when we won back our freedom and dignity.” The priest, a professor at the Catholic Seminary in Warsaw, denounced abortion, the housing shortage and atheism among youth as “criminal machinations” against the Polish family, which he described as a bastion against the state’s alien ideology.
Israel’s initial assessment of blame for the terrorist attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports Friday is that the shadowy, pro-Libyan Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal was responsible. At a meeting with an American delegation, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said “I cannot say for sure, but that is our impression.” The Israeli Cabinet today discussed how to respond to Friday’s terrorist attacks, which left 18 people dead and more than 110 wounded.
The White House said Israel should keep its response to a “measured” one as it reacts to the attacks on the airports in Rome and Vienna, in order to avoid a new round of fighting in the Middle East. Concerned that White House officials in California might have left a wrong impression on Saturday that the Administration opposed any retaliation, senior Administration officials said today that Washington was only trying to insure that Israel did not take steps that might involve Syria in an open conflict. At the California White House on Saturday, a White House official said that the United States had asked a number of governments to “lean on” Israel not to retaliate for the attacks by gunmen at the Rome and Vienna airports on Friday. At the same time, State Department officials in Washington said that no such messages had gone out.
Al Fatah was not to blame for the terrorist attack in Vienna, a high Austrian official said. Interior Minister Karl Blecha said the renegade Fatah Revolutionary Council headed by Abu Nidal might have been responsible for the machine-gun and hand-grenade assault that left three people dead, including one of the terrorists. But the Minister said the involvement of Abu Nidal’s group was not yet certain. The precise identity of the group that organized and mounted last Friday’s twin attacks against El Al Israel Airlines check-in counters at the Vienna and Rome airports has become critically important since Israel has warned that it plans to retaliate against those it finds to be responsible.
The four terrorists in Rome were trained in Iran and entered Italy by way of Syria, Italy’s military intelligence chief said in a newspaper interview. He said they were followers of Abu Nidal, the renegade Palestinian leader. The Ministry of Defense, in what seen by diplomats as an effort to distance itself from the assertion, said the remarks “do not express the thought of the government. But Western diplomats here said the consensus among intelligence officials was that Iran had indeed played a role in training the terrorists.
Growing militancy among young Palestinians is pumping new life into extremist guerrilla factions, according to sources here who are close to the Palestinians. At the same time, the results of a poll taken among Palestinian refugees in the Beirut area reportedly show a sharp decline in the popularity of Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The sources said despondency and a sense of desperation about the future, intensified by restrictions imposed by the governments in the countries where they live, had driven hundreds of Palestinian youths into the arms of hard-line groups such as the Fatah Revolutionary Council headed by Mazen Sabry al-Banna, better known as Abu Nidal. Italian authorities said the surviving terrorist from Friday’s attack at the Rome airport said that he belonged to the Abu Nidal organization. Mohammed Sarham, 19 years old, who said he grew up at the Shatila refugee district in Beirut, was quoted as saying that the underground group was well armed and equipped and “will continue the struggle until Zionism is destroyed.”
Worldwide reports on terrorism indicate that governments have hardened their attitudes and toughened their security measures. In Europe and the Middle East, where terrorists in 1985 struck more often and more brutally than in years past, governments have adopted new laws, ordered tighter defenses and established new links of international cooperation to exchange information about terrorism.
Americans are apparently becoming more wary of overseas travel as a result of hijackings and other terrorist acts, according to a sampling of travel agents. They report that bookings to Rome, Athens and the Middle East have declined in recent months. Telephone interviews with a dozen travel agents in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami over the weekend turned up few cancellations as a result of terrorist attacks Friday at airports in Rome and Vienna. But, the agents said, bookings for overseas flights have dropped — from 7 to 10 percent, according to some — since the hijacking June 15 of a Trans World Airlines plane bound for Rome from Athens with 153 people aboard.
President Hafez al-Assad of Syria met today with leaders of three Lebanese factions and offered assurances that Syria would help carry out an agreement designed to end Lebanon’s 10-year-old civil war. The Lebanese leaders — Nabih Berri of the Shiite movement Amal, Walid Jumblat of the Progressive Socialist Party, a mostly Druse group, and Elie Hobeika, commander of the Christian militia known as the Lebanese Forces — signed the agreement on Saturday in Damascus, Syria.
Pakistani President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq named three retired army officers and one civilian today as governors for Pakistan’s four provinces. The move came amid expectations of an imminent end to eight and a half years of martial law. President Zia, who toppled Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a 1977 coup, has declined to say whether basic rights will be restored after martial law or if he will retire from the army to continue as a civilian president. A government statement said the new governors, three of whom replace military men who will continue as soldiers, would be sworn in tomorrow.
India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi called on Indians today to shun foreign goods and catch up with developed countries in technology. At the end of centenary celebrations of his Congress Party, held in a Bombay cricket stadium, he called for a return to the simple values of Mohandas K. Gandhi.
A breakaway group trying to seize control of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, the larger of two non-Communist groups fighting to oust the Vietnamese from Cambodia, says it now controls the organization’s civilian border camps as well as its army. On the Thai-Cambodian border, there have been no reported changes in the administration of the civilian exile settlements, where more than 120,000 supporters of the group live under Thai jurisdiction. But several Cambodian camp administrators have said they would not welcome a visit from Son Sann, the Liberation Front’s president, who is being criticized by the dissidents but has considerable civilian support in the settlements.
A court has ordered the Philippine Government to seize the sugar plantation owned by the family of Corazon C. Aquino, the opposition presidential candidate, for purported failure to comply with land regulations, family sources said today. Mrs. Aquino called the order “political harassment” by President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Family sources said the court decision was handed down on December 3, one day after Mrs. Aquino announced she would challenge Mr. Marcos. Legal sources said today that an appeal was filed December 21. Mrs. Aquino is treasurer of the trading company whose subsidiary owns the plantation, which was purchased in 1958 by her father. The government asserted that a contract Mrs. Aquino’s father signed with the government in 1958 had been breached because the land had not been divided among tenant farmers. The family’s attorneys replied that the laborers were not tenants but union workers, and that President Marcos had exempted sugar plantations from land redistribution to maximize production.
The Archbishop of San Salvador said today that there were reports that both the army and leftist guerrillas had violated a Christmas truce. The Archbishop, Arturo Rivera y Damas, in a homily at the city’s Metropolitan Cathedral, said that residents of three areas in regular combat zones had reported air force bombings in which homes were destroyed.He said there were also reports of injuries from guerrilla mines in two towns.
The Sudan’s military rulers, who have promised to restore democracy, announced today that the country’s first general elections in nearly two decades would be held over 12 days starting April 1. The official Sudan News Agency said the date was fixed at a joint meeting of the ruling Transitional Military Council, led by Gen. Abdel Rahman Siwar el-Dahab, and the interim Government of Prime Minister al-Gazouly Dafallah. Elections by April had been promised by General Siwar el-Dahab, who led a coup last April in which President Gaafar al-Nimeiry was ousted.
Burkina Faso and Mali have agreed to a truce in their five-day-old border conflict, according to official radio reports today from both countries. The Foreign Ministers of the two countries met in Abidjan with ministers from five other West African nations to try to end the fighting. The conflict is over the arid, 90-mile Agacher border zone, which is said to be rich in minerals and natural gas. The state radio in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, said that “on behalf of the Burkinabe people, the National Council of the Revolution has given its consent” to the cease-fire proposal.
Ten years after Angola’s birth by civil war, the fighting rages on and neither side seems close to victory. Guerrillas fighting the Marxist central Government have won a shadowy control over much of the countryside, killing most economic activity. The government has retained control of the major towns and of the oil wells — its lifeline for survival. In an effort to break this stalemate, outside powers are raising their stakes in the fight for what could be one of the wealthiest nations in black Africa. Soviet and Cuban stakes in Angola are being raised in the fight for what could be one of black Africa’s richest countries. Moscow has sold up to $2 billion worth of military equipment to the Marxist Government in the last two years. Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, whose 30,000 soldiers helped the Marxists take power 10 years ago, has vowed to send 200,000 more to support the Government in its fight against anti-Marxists.
Six South African exiles shot dead in a border raid that Lesotho ascribes to South African troops were buried with state and guerrilla honors today in a funeral attended by American and foreign envoys. The victims, described as refugee members of the African National Congress, were buried on the eve of an attempt by Lesotho to have South Africa condemned by the United Nations Security Council for the raid. The Congress, which is outlawed in South Africa, is the main guerrilla group fighting to end white rule in South Africa.
A national conference of black parents, students and teachers urged radical black high school students of South Africa today to lift a boycott of classes that has crippled the nation’s segregated educational system for months. Bishop Desmond Tutu told the gathering at the University of the Witwatersrand that if the authorities did not heed black educational demands within three months he would call for generalized, black economic action. “If the Government after three months refuses these requests, then it must not just be the students who lay down tools,” he said. “I suggest that teachers, parents, workers, church leaders, university staff and students must all combine in a concerted effort to say ‘stop.’ “
Molly Blackburn, one of South Africa’s most prominent white campaigners against apartheid, and a fellow activist, Brian Bishop, were killed in a car accident Saturday night, the police said today. Mr. Bishop’s wife, Di, and Mrs. Blackburn’s sister, Judith Chalmers, were injured in the accident, the police said, when their car collided head on with another vehicle driven by a black man near Humansdorp, 60 miles west of Port Elizabeth, Mrs. Blackburn’s hometown. Her husband, Dr. Gavin Blackburn, said he believed the police version of events was probably true. So deep is the mistrust of the authorities by political campaigners in South Africa’s restive Eastern Cape region that anti-Government activists immediately believe that “accidents” are engineered by their adversaries.
Surging foreign investment in the United States has been accompanied by increasing political activity by foreign corporations. Foreign business executives and their American lobbyists have become familiar figures in the corridors of Congress, state houses and city halls. Japanese business executives warned that they would curtail their investments in the United States if Congress ended the favorable tax treatment they have received. Saudi Arabians threatened to sell their United States securities rather than disclose how much they own. The political action committee of a Dutch-owned company contributed $726,000 to a campaign to defeat a proposed tax in California.
President Reagan travels to Palm Springs, California to stay at the home of former Ambassador of the United States to the United Kingdom Walter Annenberg.
In his annual report on the judiciary, Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger complains of a “judicial deficit” created by a shortage of judges and a backlog of cases. The Chief Justice said he had asked President Reagan and the Senate to act faster to fill vacancies. His report, to be issued Monday, was made available today. “Federal judges are working longer hours and more days than ever before but, like Alice in Wonderland, they cannot run fast enough even to stay in the same place,” the Chief Justice said. The backlog of cases has developed in the lower courts partly because of slowness in filling 85 Federal judgeships authorized in July 1984, Chief Justice Burger said. One year after the authorization, 56 of the new positions have not been filled, and there are 41 other vacancies, he said.
Tax credits for solar energy and other alternatives to fossil fuels expire January 1, throwing the future use of these sources into the cold of the marketplace. Although Congress could decide to retain the credits, established in 1977, President Reagan wants to end them. The Senate has rejected an extension, and the House has voted to phase them out by 1989.
The U.S. population grew at a rate of 5.4 percent over the last five years to 238,740,000 as of July 1, the Census Bureau said. Southern and Western states accounted for more than 90 percent of the population increase of 12.2 million people. The newly released figures indicate a continuing migratory trend toward the Sun Belt states of the South and West, which began shortly after World War II and picked up dramatically in the 1970’s. California maintained its position as the most populous state, with 26,365,000 residents as of July 1. It was followed by New York, with 17,783,000; Texas, with 16,370,000; Pennsylvania, with 11,853,000, and Illinois with 11,535,000. Florida has moved into the No. 6 slot since 1980, with 11,366,000 residents, displacing Ohio, with a population of 10,744,000. Alaska continued to be the fastest-growing state, with a growth rate of 29.7 percent over the five-year period, and is no longer the least populated state. Wyoming, with 509,000 people, now claims that title.
By a narrow margin, meat cutters from the United Food and Commercial Workers union voted today to end a long and bitter strike against 1,000 supermarkets across Southern California and return to their jobs immediately. On Thursday three of the meat cutters’ six locals voted to reject a tentative contract, which members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who had also been on strike, had accepted. The split decision between the 22,000 members of the Teamsters and meat cutters unions caused confusion among the rank and file as well as in the management of the seven supermarket chains.
The Massachusetts Commission against Discrimination has ruled that the Boston School of Ballet did not discriminate against a black student in not promoting her to a preprofessional class. The complaint was brought by Alyce Gittens, of Boston, on behalf of her daughter Joan, 17 years old. Mrs. Gittens contended that Joan was not promoted because of her race. The school said Joan was not a good enough dancer for the preprofessional level. One of the teacher evaluations cited in the commission’s decision said Joan was technically competent, but “the moves indicate the making of an athlete, not an artist.” The commission noted that another black student had been promoted. Mrs. Gittens, informed of the decision Friday, said she would pursue the case through the city’s Human Rights Commission or the courts.
Three Democrats scored landslide victories in a special election Saturday to fill Honolulu City Council seats left vacant by the recall of three members who had switched to the Republican Party. According to complete but unofficial returns, Former State Representatives Donna Mercado Kim and Arnold Morgado Jr. and Deputy Attorney General Randall Y. Iwase won by margins of more than 2 to 1. Although other Democrats ran, the three victors had the party’s endorsement. In October voters recalled Councilmen George Akahane, Toraki Matsumoto and Rudy Pacarro, who had switched to the Republican Party in June, giving the party a 5-to-4 Council majority.
A privately printed book crammed full of the driest of data from real estate records and legislative dockets has become a local best seller in Honolulu in only two months. The book, “Land and Power in Hawaii: The Democratic Years,” draws on public records in asserting that many members of Hawaii’s ruling Democratic Party faction, now in office more than 30 years, profited as developers, lawyers, contractors, investors and sometimes as influence peddlers in the development that changed the face of the islands. The Democrats took power in 1954, after half a century of control by Republican landowners, promising to change a system in which most of the land was owned by a few. Instead, according to the book, individual Democratic officials cut themselves in on real estate profiteering.
When the Northern Pacific Railroad laid its steel ribbons across Montana in 1882, it reserved 300 acres along the Yellowstone River near Livingston for one of the largest locomotive repair yards in the country. The company town of 7,000 people eventually grew up along the tracks, with the jobs, home lots and most of the city’s tax revenue supplied by the railroad. The railroad, merged over the years with several other rail companies and now called the Burlington Northern, announced in November that it would close the locomotive repair shop here, eliminating 360 high-paying jobs. Only a handful of railroad workers, brakemen and others who work on the freights that pass through town, will remain. It is the end of the line for Livingston as a company town.
About midway through the weekend, the National Weather Service announced that 5 feet 2 ½ inches of snow had fallen on Buffalo this month — more than during any other December in recorded history. The reaction around town was less than overwhelming. “Ho-hum,” commented J. Patrick Donlon, a spokesman for the Buffalo Area Chamber of Commerce. “We’re always breaking that kind of record,” said Florence Hill, an administrative assistant in the Sanitation Department.
The steelhead trout that fight their way up the fish ladders at the Lake Washington ship canal on their way to spawn have run into a pair of voracious predators, two California sea lions that have become something of a local tourist attraction. The sea lions, who are being called Herschel and Humpback, alertly patrol the area on the seaward side of the canal’s locks, frequently surfacing with large fish in their mouths, which they eat with zest. Scores of spectators gather to watch on weekends. Although the Lake Washington steelhead run is relatively small, it is considered important by sport fishermen and conservationists in the Puget Sound area.
Ice chunks blocking the Snake River on the Oregon-Idaho border yesterday pushed flood waters over the banks and threatened one city’s water supply as the National Guard moved in to help evacuate residents near the river. The biggest flood threat was to the water supply of Ontario, Oregon. Three feet of water surrounded the city water treatment plant beside the river by evening. Earlier in the day, gale force winds whipping off the Great Lakes pushed chunks of ice and freezing water over the banks of the St. Clair River into homes in Algonac, Michigan, 50 miles north of Detroit. Officials said later in the day that the situation had eased. Four families were evacuated. The National Weather Service posted warnings for gale-force winds over the Great Lakes. On Lake Michigan three fishermen were missing and presumed dead after their boat capsized in heavy seas Friday. Three other men from the boat were plucked from the water by a helicopter. Elsewhere, thick fog in Texas delayed flights at the Houston and Midland airports.
NFL Football:
NFC Wildcard Game:
The New York Giants soundly defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 17–3, in NFL playoff action. In the Giants first home playoff game since 1962, despite the fact that the 49ers recorded 362 yards of total offense, with receiver Dwight Clark catching eight passes for 120 yards, the Giants defense limited San Francisco to only one field goal the entire game. It was a very satisfying win for New York, who had lost their last five games played against the 49ers, including playoff losses in 1981 and 1984. Meanwhile, the 49ers dropped nine passes and finished without a touchdown for the first time in their last 40 games. The Giants scored on their opening possession of the game with kicker Eric Schubert’s 47-yard field goal. Then in the second quarter, New York safety Terry Kinard intercepted a pass from 49ers quarterback Joe Montana and returned it 15 yards to set up Phil Simms’ 18-yard touchdown pass to tight end Mark Bavaro. San Francisco managed to drive inside the Giants 10-yard line with a 15-play drive that included two personal fouls and a holding call against New York’s defense. However, they could not get into the end zone and had to settle for Ray Wersching’s 21-yard field goal, cutting the score to 10-3 going into halftime. A 77-yard drive in the third quarter was capped by Simms’ 3-yard touchdown pass to tight end Don Hasselbeck, increasing New York’s lead to 17–3. In the fourth quarter, the Giants made two key defensive stands to keep the game out of range. First, they forced San Francisco to turn the ball over on downs at the New York 26 with 4:46 left. Following a New York punt, the 49ers drove into the Giants red zone. With 2:16 left in the game, Montana threw a touchdown pass to tight end John Frank, but it was eliminated by a holding penalty against guard John Ayers. On the next play, he threw a pass to running back Carl Monroe, only to have him drop it in the end zone. Then on fourth and 15, Montana’s final pass was incomplete and New York ran out the rest of the clock. New York running back Joe Morris finished the game with 141 rushing yards. Defensive lineman Jim Burt had two of New York’s four sacks. 49ers running back Roger Craig, who became the first player in NFL history to gain over 1,000 rushing and receiving yards during the regular season, was held to just 24 rushing yards and 18 receiving yards. This was the third postseason meeting between the 49ers and Giants. San Francisco won both previous meetings.
San Francisco 49ers 3, New York Giants 17
Born:
Alexa Ray Joel, American singer-songwriter and daughter of Billy Joel & Christie Brinkley, in Manhattan, New York, New York.
Tasha Humphrey, WNBA center (Detroit Shock, Washington Mystics, Minnesota Lynx), in Gainesville, Georgia.
History Diaries 