Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in a letter to a British politician made public today, reiterated that progress in arms control “is possible only if space-strike armaments are completely prohibited.” Western diplomats said that the statement seemed unusually blunt in affirming Soviet policy on the United States’ space-based defense program, popularly known as “Star Wars.” It is a reminder, they said, that the two sides remain deadlocked on the issue despite atmospheric improvements, including the exchange of televised New Year’s greetings by President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev. The arms talks in Geneva are scheduled to resume January 16.
Two groups that seek emigration rights for Soviet Jews said they would support the lowering of trade barriers against Moscow if exit visas granted to Jews are allowed to return to 1979 levels of more than 51,000. In 1985, just 1,139 Jews emigrated, an “abysmal” number, said Alan Pesky, chairman of the Coalition to Free Soviet Jews. Morris B. Abram, chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, said there is “realistic hope” for improvement this year because President Reagan pressed the issue with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Geneva.
More British troops arrived in Northern Ireland today amid guerrilla attacks against the police and rising Protestant anger over the British-Irish agreement giving Dublin a say in the future of the province. Officials said 550 new soldiers ordered to the province this week had arrived to take up duties in areas near the border with the Irish republic. The troops, who are to be deployed by the end of the week, are the first reinforcements sent to Northern Ireland since 1981, when 10 jailed nationalist guerrillas fasted to death in an attempt to win political status.
The average Briton is happy, healthy and prosperous, living in a centrally heated home with a television set, 1.77 children and half of a dog or cat. Nine out of 10 people are content with their lot, according to statistics published today, part of a survey published by the Government’s Central Office of Information.
The police in several European cities appear to have disrupted a number of Arab-backed terrorist plots for assassinations and bombing attacks. Over the last week, arrests and expulsions of Arabs suspected as terrorists have occurred in Madrid, Brussels, Paris and Athens.
British strategists drew up a battle plan in 1955 to bomb three Israeli cities if Israel invaded Jordan, according to government documents published by the Times of London. The documents identified Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa as the potential bombing targets. Britain would have acted under a defense treaty with Jordan, according to the documents, released under the British government’s 30-year secrecy rule.
Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, lashed out at President Reagan in an interview, calling him “a mere robot and parrot who repeats what is dictated to him.” He added that Reagan cannot compare to his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, whom he called “a man of principles derived from his true Christian spirit.” Arafat told the Kuwait News Agency that Reagan “does not cherish values and does not know the meaning of returning good deeds.”
An artillery rocket launched from southern Lebanon struck an Israeli border town overnight, damaging four cars and sending residents fleeing to bomb shelters. Four more Katyusha rockets exploded about the same time elsewhere in northern Galilee. Late tonight Israeli military sources said Israeli artillery shelled what were described as guerrilla bases across the border, apparently in reprisal for the Katyusha attacks. The South Lebanon Army, Israel’s Christian-led allies, also reportedly hit villages north of the security belt intermittently today.
Washington again urged sanctions against Libya for its purported support of terrorist groups. The United States said it agreed with Israel that the attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports called for international economic and political penalties against Libya by Western European and other countries and not just retaliation by Israel or the United States. Five years ago, the United States severed diplomatic ties with Libya, banned the importation of Libyan oil, sharply cut other trade and barred the use of American passports for travel to Libya without special validation. The Western Europeans, especially the Italians, have been reluctant to follow this lead because of close economic relations with Libya and dependence on Libyan oil.
Libya’s influence in Western Europe has begun to weaken as a result of Tripoli’s purported sponsorship of terrorism and the decline of oil prices, according to diplomatic and political officials. But they said that some countries, including West Germany and Italy, remain economically entangled with Libya and averse to suggestions of punitive measures for terrorist activity, most recently the attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports. The attacks last Friday appear to have quickened a growing feeling of revulsion for Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, who has been accused by Israel and the United States of harboring and financing a Palestinian splinter group blamed for the airport raids and other acts of violence in Western Europe. In both Austria and Italy, which have been conspicuous in Western Europe for maintaining good relations with Libya, there have been signs of a momentary anti-Qaddafi backlash.
Cambodian guerrilla leader Pol Pot has promised to stop all his military and political activities if Hanoi agrees to an internationally supervised withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia, the clandestine Khmer Rouge radio said. Pol Pot led the Communist regime that is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths during its rule in Cambodia from 1975 until Vietnamese troops ousted him in early 1979. The Khmer Rouge say they have retired Pol Pot as commander, but he is still regarded as the leader behind the scenes.
Corazon C. Aquino campaigned in a political stronghold of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Mrs. Aquino, the Philippine opposition candidate, said she would allow Communists into a coalition government if they agreed to renounce violence. Mrs. Aquino stood at the base of a three-story-high bust of Mr. Marcos that overlooks a Government-run golf course and resort named Marcos Park and said, “I will leave it to the Filipino people to decide what they want to do with this.” At a news conference in nearby Baguio, 125 miles north of Manila, Mrs. Aquino responded to charges by Mr. Marcos that the country would fall to Communism if she defeated him in the special election scheduled for February 7. “I would be the last person in the world to be a Communist,” she said. “I have never been a Communist, and I do not intend to be a Communist.
A cook suspected of hiding an arms cache aboard a French freighter headed for New Caledonia was arrested today and charged with possession of explosives, the police said. Auckland detectives said the 29-year-old Frenchman from New Caledonia, who was not identified, was scheduled to appear in court Friday. If convicted, he faces up to three months in jail or a $500 fine. The cache of ammunition and weapons parts was discovered Sunday aboard the Ile de Lumiere, which arrived from Australia to collect a cargo of timber. The ship was bound for New Caledonia, a French territory in turmoil over demands by the local Melanesians for independence. French settlers and other groups who are a 57 percent majority oppose severing links with France.
President Reagan accused Moscow and Havana of aiding terrorist movements in the Western Hemisphere, saying the link was “increasingly clear.” Mr. Reagan said they were aiding terrorists in El Salvador, Colombia and Ecuador. Mr. Reagan’s remarks were contained in written responses to recent questions from a Mexican publication, Noticias de Mexico, which were released by the Western White House here today. The interview was made public on the eve of a scheduled four-hour meeting Friday in the Mexican town of Mexicali with Mexico’s President, Miguel de la Madrid. The meeting between the two leaders, which will be their fourth since Mr. Reagan took office in 1981, is expected to include discussions about Central America, particularly the United States stand on Nicaragua.
Drug abuse remains a serious problem around the world, and in Latin America the narcotics trade finances gun running, terrorism and other crimes, said a United Nations report issued today. “The abuse of a variety of drugs remains at a high level,” said the International Narcotics Control Board’s annual report. “An ominous development is the apparent close connection between drug trafficking and the financing of other major criminal activities.” It cited other United Nations findings linking drug dealing in unspecified parts of Latin America to “the illegal traffic in firearms, subversion, international terrorism and other criminal activities.”
El Salvador’s leftist guerrillas said they killed or wounded more than 6,000 government troops during 1985 and are prepared for many more years of war. The rebel Radio Venceremos carried a summary of military actions that sharply conflicts with government statements that the insurgents are losing their six-year civil war. “We are ready for a long battle, much longer than they can resist,” the broadcast said.
The Nicaraguan Government closed the official radio station of the Roman Catholic Church today after the station failed to broadcast most of a year-end message from President Daniel Ortega Saavedra. A notice from the government communications office did not say how long the station, known as Catholic Radio, would be off the air. Msgr. Bismarck Carballo, director of the radio station, said the station did not broadcast Mr. Ortega’s message because of “human failure on the part of the shift controller who forgot to link” the radio station to the national network to receive the statement. Monsignor Carballo said “we consider that the measure” by the communications office “is out of proportion because we didn’t do it on purpose.”
Chilean air force personnel recovered the bodies of eight American tourists killed in the New Year’s Eve crash of a chartered plane on an Antarctic glacier, Chilean officials said. The cause of the crash has not been determined, but bad weather is suspected. The victims, retired and middle-aged professionals, were on a $6,000-per-person trip. The victims had planned to spend New Year’s Eve among the penguins in Antarctica. Two Californians, Irving Lambrecht, a Los Angeles retiree, and James M. Jasper, a librarian from Oxnard, were among those killed.
Uganda imposed censorship on news about its security forces amid new rebel charges that government troops are continuing to brutalize and kill civilians. The chief of staff, Lieutenant General Basilio Olara Okello, said a “press security committee” is being formed to “scrutinize and approve or disapprove all news items on security forces before they are printed or broadcast.” His statement followed accusations by the guerrilla Uganda National Resistance Army that soldiers have killed more than 300 people since Uganda’s leaders and the rebels signed a power-sharing agreement December 17.
A white South African anti-apartheid activist, Molly Blackburn, who died in an auto wreck, was cremated after a funeral ceremony that became an emotional tribute by more than 10,000 poor and voteless blacks. To the strains of black nationalist chants and Christian hymns, one of South Africa’s most prominent white activists was cremated today after a funeral ceremony that became an emotional tribute by thousands of the poor and voteless blacks whose cause she had espoused. Molly Blackburn, who died in an automobile wreck on Dec. 28, was “a warrior for justice who walked briefly in a troubled land,” said Sheena Duncan, leader of Black Sash, a white women’s anti-apartheid group to which the dead activist belonged. More than 10,000 blacks flooded into Port Elizabeth’s white areas to attend what turned into the biggest funeral rally in South Africa’s recent history for a white anti-apartheid politician. “Africans in this country,” said Mkuseli Jack, a prominent black leader in this port city, “are walking tall in the trail she blazed.”
The administrator of the Farmers Home Administration said the government would delay notifying tens of thousands of farmers that they are delinquent in their loan payments. The letters, marking the end of a two-year court-ordered moratorium on foreclosures, were scheduled to be sent next week. But Administrator Vance Clark said on public broadcasting’s “MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour” that the notices would be delayed until January 23, a day after a federal court considers a request to stop the loan review process.
The rocket steering problem that grounded the shuttle Columbia last month 15 seconds before launching has been traced to a tiny electrical component that led ground computers astray, officials said. National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineers, meanwhile, were back at work readying the twice-delayed shuttle for blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a five-day mission. The countdown begins at 10 PM PST today for a blastoff at 4:05 AM PST Monday, to kick off a 15-launching 1986 space schedule.
A retired C.I.A. analyst charged with espionage had access to highly classified information gathered by covert American intelligence agents working overseas, the Justice Department said. A senior law-enforcement official said the disclosure indicated that the analyst, Larry Wu-Tai Chin, may have helped Peking determine the identity of American agents working in China. The information about Mr. Chin’s access to intelligence gathered by covert agents was contained in a new indictment issued today by a Federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia. The 17-count indictment replaced an indictment issued last month that charged Mr. Chin with one count of espionage.
Inmates who had rioted agreed to release all hostages by today and to return control of the West Virginia Penitentiary to the authorities. In return, Governor Arch A. Moore agreed to meet with prisoners today to discuss their demands for improved treatment. Hundreds of inmates took over the south end of the 120-year-old penitentiary, West Virginia’s only maximum-security prison, on the evening of New Year’s Day. Two prisoners were killed in the uprising, a prison spokesman said. The killing of the second man came to light after the signing of the pact today.
The death rate among women 35 and older from pregnancy-related causes has dropped nearly 50% in recent years, although women that age are still three times as likely to die from such causes as younger women, a study shows. “Although older women will probably continue to be at higher risk of maternal death, recent trends… should be reassuring to younger women who are considering postponement of pregnancy and to women aged 35 or older who are contemplating pregnancy,” researchers said in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Rear Admiral Scott W. Ebert, under investigation for alleged misuse of government personnel and funds at two military supply centers, has received a letter of reprimand and has retired, the Navy said in Norfolk, Virginia. The retirement of Ebert, 54, who requested the move, ended investigations begun two months ago by the Department of Defense’s inspector general and the Navy. The Navy said Ebert was charged with three violations under the Uniform Code of Military Justice alleging that he inappropriately used government personnel and funds while stationed in Norfolk and Richmond.
More than 600 school bus drivers went on strike in Boston, leaving 25,000 students scrambling to find ways to class, but the school superintendent rejected the drivers’ demands and vowed to keep schools open. School officials said attendance was off sharply on the first day of the walkout by union drivers, who are seeking improved benefits and increased bus safety checks. Hardest hit were elementary schools, where only 30% of the students attended classes, Supt. Laval S. Wilson said.
The police today found the body of a youth a heroin addict said he had killed before the addict was slain by a police sharpshooter in a hostage situation. The body of 14-year-old Eddie Pence of Newport, Kentucky, was found on a path in a wooded area near a junior high school in Cincinnati, said Detective Ron Camden. He said the cause of death would be investigated. In a 30-hour siege Monday in which he held two teen-age brothers hostage, Dennis Lucas, 20, of Dayton, Kentucky, said he had killed Eddie Pence and James Cain, 15, of Covington, Kentucky, because he thought the boys had stolen drugs from him. Mr. Lucas said he dumped James Cain’s body in the Licking River, between Newport and Covington, and discarded Eddie Pence’s body in Cincinnati. Newport police said they found James Cain’s stabbed body along the Licking and are investigating. During the standoff Monday in Newport, Kentucky, Mr. Lucas demanded money and transportation away from Newport. He was fatally shot by a sniper after the police had rescued one of his hostages.
A university report charged that Harvard Professor Nadav Safran had erred in not disclosing that he received more than $150,000 from the CIA for a conference on the Middle East but said Harvard also was at fault for not enforcing research guidelines. “It has been open season on me for three months,” said Safran, who stepped down as director of Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies but will continue as a professor.
Mary Lund, the first woman to receive an artificial heart, emerged from her coma today, sitting up and responding to her husband’s voice 15 days after the implant, doctors said. “She sat on the edge of the bed today for a period of about five minutes,” Dr. Fredarick Gobel of Abbott Northwestern Hospital said at a news conference here. “Although she’s still very fatigued, she arouses quickly to the voice of her husband.” Mrs. Lund, a 40-year-old secretary from Kensington, Minnesota, underwent the implant on December 18 after a rare viral disease destroyed her heart muscle.
A smoke-filled plane carrying Ricky Nelson, his fiancée and five band members made a good landing in an East Texas pasture, then burned, officials said tonight. Investigators had not determined where the fire began, but the only fire extinguisher that had been used was in the rear cabin area, Jim Burnett, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a news conference in Texarkana, Arkansas. The seven passengers died in the crash; their bodies were found in the front of the cabin, just outside the cockpit door, Mr. Burnett said. The two pilots survived. Deborah Harris, an assistant to the medical examiner at Dallas, said autopsies had been done on five victims. “On all of them,” she said, the cause of death “is going to be probably smoke inhalation and thermal burns.”
The Pentagon is challenging hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills submitted since 1982 by the chairman of Fairchild Industries to cover air commuting expenses from his home near Chesapeake Bay to corporate headquarters 100 miles away, it was disclosed. Chairman Edward J. Uhl billed the Defense Department for $162,000 in commuting expenses for 1983 even though the Defense Contract Audit Agency had already disallowed $34,000 in air travel bills.
Striking fishermen in New Bedford, Massachusetts blocked one of the nation’s most productive fish auction houses today, but a federal mediator said workers and boat owners had agreed to return to the bargaining table Saturday. “They’ll probably meet Sunday, too, if there’s some progress,” said the mediator, Austin Skinner. The two sides in the walkout at New England’s busiest fishing port have not met since talks broke off December 16. About half of New Bedford’s 1,200 fishermen went on strike last Friday. From 150 to 200 picketers surrounded the New Bedford fish auction house today, preventing the handful of buyers who showed up from doing business.
A $99 one-way cross-country air fare, reduced to $65 for people 65 years of age and older, was announced by Continental Airlines. The carrier said the special fares, hedged with various restrictions, would apply to about half of the 5 million seats that Continental will have available on all its routes during the two-month low-fare promotion, from next Tuesday through March 5.
A shift on radiation exposure limits is expected. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, citing improved knowledge of radiation’s health effects, has proposed the first major revision in the limits since 1957. The proposals are subject to public comment until April 21.
Judges are pressing disputants to conclude cases more quickly. To meet this objective, judges around the country are calling regular meetings on the status of cases, setting strict trial dates and holding modified trials that may be accepted as final if the parties wish.
Friends of the Earth is split over a decision by its board of directors to move the organization’s headquarters from San Francisco to Washington. David Brower, the chairman and founder of the politically active environmental organization, is suing the directors over the decision and is threatening to resign if the move takes place.
The legendary Bill Veeck dies of a pulmonary embolism at the age of 71. The baseball impresario had a 45-year career as one of the most creative and provocative sports promoters. The legendary Bill Veeck dies of a pulmonary embolism at the age of 71. The colorful Veeck had owned the Milwaukee Brewers (American Association), the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and the Chicago White Sox twice. He sold the White Sox five years ago this month. Veeck was responsible for numerous baseball innovations and promotions but, as he predicted, he is remembered for sending a midget to the plate during the 1951 Browns’ season. Veeck’s ashes will be scattered over Lake Erie.
The NHL New York Islanders right wing Mike Bossy scores his 499th and 500th career goals in the final 2:22 to lift the New York to a 7–5 victory over the Boston Bruins; 11th player in NHL history to score 500 goals.
Oklahoma was the consensus selection as the No. 1 major-college team for 1985, a day after its 25–10 defeat of previously undefeated and top-ranked Penn State in the Orange Bowl. The decision was an easy one because Oklahoma’s two leading rivals — Miami and Iowa — were soundly whipped in upsets at the Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl, respectively. Oklahoma, which finished with an 11–1 record, was chosen by The Associated Press in a vote of reporters and broadcasters, by The United Press International in a vote of college coaches and by The New York Times in its final computer ranking. Michigan (10–1–1), which beat Nebraska, 27–23, in the Fiesta Bowl, finished second in each of those three ranking systems.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1537.73 (-8.94)
Born:
Rashad Johnson, NFL safety (Arizona Cardinals, Tennessee Titans), in Sulligent, Alabama.
Randolph Morris, NBA center and power forward (New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks), in Houston, Texas.
Trombone Shorty [Troy Andrews], American jazz musician and producer, in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Died:
Bill Veeck, 71, American Baseball HOF executive (owner Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians [World Series 1948], St. Louis Browns), of lung cancer.
Herbert Magidson, 79, American lyricist, winner of first Academy Award for Best Original Song (“The Continental”; “Gone With The Wind”; “The Masquerade Is Over”).
Una Merkel, 82, American actress (“42nd Street”, “Abraham Lincoln”).
History Diaries 