Italian political leaders told President Reagan’s special envoy today that they were prepared to take new measures against Libya. Libya. At the same time, the special envoy, Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead, said the United States had given new evidence to the Italians of Libyan ties to the attacks on airports in Rome and Vienna last month in which 19 people were killed, 5 of them Americans, and more than Mr. Whitehead, on a nine-nation tour in which he hopes to persuade the European allies to join the United States in economic sanctions against Libya, described the evidence as “incontrovertible,” but declined to give details. He spoke at a news conference after a two-hour meeting with Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti. Mr. Whitehead said new threats by the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, to train and arm guerrillas for “suicide and terrorist missions” were not mentioned in the talks today with Mr. Craxi and Mr. Andreotti.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl, although urging closer international cooperation in combating terrorism, warned this week that overt action against Libya could generate a wave of solidarity among Arab nations that would be harmful to Western interests. “The tendency toward solidarity is very evident,” Mr. Kohl said in a two-hour interview Thursday, “and I do not believe that would be a happy development.” Saying that he had “a deep skepticism toward any form of economic boycott,” the Chancellor called instead for “much closer” and “completely unbureaucratic” collaboration among Western European nations and the United States to confront terrorism, which he called “the plague of the 20th century.” Along with other North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, West Germany has declined to join the United States in imposing economic sanctions on Libya for what Washington calls Libyan sponsorship of terrorism. But Mr. Kohl said he welcomed the mission this week of a special American envoy, Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead, to consult with the allies on the Libya issue. Mr. Whitehead is expected in Bonn this weekend.
The recent arms-control proposal by the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, signals some possible movement toward a ban on chemical weapons, according to Administration officials. “There were moves in the new Gorbachev approach on the chemical weapons front,” said Kenneth L. Adelman, the director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Mr. Adelman said that if these moves were followed up by Soviet negotiators “we can make progress on banning chemical weapons around the world.” Mr. Adelman and other Administration experts said the Soviet moves were primarily in the area of verifying compliance with a ban on producing weapons. In his proposal, issued Wednesday as part of a broad arms reduction package, Mr. Gorbachev said the Soviet Union supported the “total elimination” of chemical weapons “and of the industrial base for their manufacture itself.” Mr. Gorbachev also said the Soviet Union would favor measures requiring the “prompt declaration” of the location of production sites of chemical weapons. The actions taken on chemical weapons, he said, would be watched through “international on-site verifications.” Administration experts said they needed a clarification of Mr. Gorbachev’s statement before they could fully assess its significance. But they said it appeared to be noteworthy on several counts.
Yelena G. Bonner, the Soviet dissident, talked for 10 minutes today with her husband, Andrei D. Sakharov, but the call was interrupted by static when she tried to tell him he was being secretly filmed by the K.G.B., according to her son-in-law, Efrem Yankelevich. Mr. Yankelevich said the static stopped when Miss Bonner, who is at Massachusetts General Hospital recovering from a heart bypass operation, shouted into the phone, “At least let us say our goodbyes!” “She told them it was murder to interfere with the conversation of someone who had just had heart surgery,” Mr. Yankelevich said. “After a while, then the lines cleared again.” Miss Bonner’s condition today was good, a hospital spokesman said. The telephone conversation was the first time Miss Bonner and Dr. Sakharov have spoken since December 28.
Shareholders rejected a rescue plan of an American-led consortium for Britain’s financially ailing Westland helicopter company at a meeting in London. Their refusal to support the bailout offer by the Sikorsky division of United Technologies and Fiat of Italy insured that the commercial and political battle surrounding Westland, would continue. Commercially, the issue is whether Westland’s future would be more secure under the United Technologies-Fiat offer or with a competing bid from five European companies. Politically, the supporters of the European group say the Westland case is a test of Britain’s commitment to European cooperation in military industries.
Spain formally recognized Israel today, 38 years after Israel’s founding as a nation. Senior Foreign Ministry officials from the two countries met in what was described as virtual secrecy in The Hague to sign a joint statement establishing diplomatic relations. The statement was later released in Tel Aviv and Madrid. The secrecy was attributed the fear of possible terrorist attacks. Government officials said security had been tightened at Spanish Embassies in Europe and North Africa and at potential terrorist targets such as airports and Israeli offices here. Spanish anti-terrorist squads have been dispatched to some embassies, among them Cairo, the officials said. Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez is scheduled to meet Sunday in The Hague with Prime Minister Shimon Peres to seal the new relationship, the statement said.
A tank battle near Beirut between rival Lebanese at the approaches to the hometown of President Amin Gemayel brought Lebanon closer to full-scale civil war. A Lebanese Army spokesman said troops loyal to Mr. Gemayel, a Christian, used United States-supplied tanks and armored personnel carriers to drive back the Soviet-built tanks of the Syrian-backed Muslim and leftist militias. The spokesman said the Moslem and leftist forces had tried to advance on Bikfeiya, Mr. Gemayel’s hometown in the mountains 12 miles northeast of central Beirut. The spokesman said 21 attackers had been killed and more than 50 wounded. The army lost 11 dead, he said, and 26 soldiers were wounded. Farther south, in hills outside the capital, the Lebanese Army engaged in artillery duels with Druse militiamen for the second day in a row. Shells and rockets struck a cluster of villages that reached to Beirut’s southern suburbs, the police said. In the fighting near Bikfeiya, Muslim radio stations said, fighters from the National Syrian Social Party, a pro-Damascus Lebanese group, moved out of their stronghold in the nearby town of Dhur Shueir under an artillery barrage and reached the village of Dowar, a few miles from the Gemayel family residence.
Hundreds of Soviet nationals and other foreigners were evacuated by ship from battle-torn Southern Yemen today. The evacuations began as a violent four-day-old power struggle between the Marxist Government and more hardline Communists appeared to veer toward tribal warfare. During the day, tank battles raged in the streets of Aden, Southern Yemen’s capital, and heavily armed Arab tribesmen of varying loyalties were reported descending on the capital from the stony mountains of the interior. In Moscow, top Soviet officials called for an immediate end to the “bloodshed” in Southern Yemen and said only “the forces of imperialism and reaction” would profit from the continuation of violence, the official press agency Tass said. In Washington, a State Department official said the United States viewed the besieged government as “more moderate” than its opposition, and for that reason hoped the government would prevail.
President Reagan approves a finding that authorizes the sale of weapons to Iran through third parties.
There were signs today that the re-election campaign of President Ferdinand E. Marcos might be in difficulty, as he came under criticism from the Philippines’ leading clergyman and worries grew about the state of his health. Opposition newspapers carried detailed reports today about an incident Thursday in which Mr. Marcos, who appeared exhausted and apparently was bleeding from his hands, received medical care on the stage of a rally at Dagupan, north of Manila. The President, who is 68 years old and suffers from a variety of ailments, including a kidney problem, has appeared weak and has canceled a number of appearances in the month-old campaign. Although he cites the weather and other reasons, some aides say privately that his weak health has hampered his campaign.
Searchers have discovered a human body, body parts and medical records at the Newfoundland site where a chartered jet crashed December 12, killing 248 American soldiers, officials said today. Fifty Canadian police officers and United States soldiers have scoured the crash site near Gander International Airport, where the Arrow Air DC-8 crashed after takeoff while ferrying the servicemen home from peacekeeping duties in Sinai. Searchers uncovered one body after thawing the frozen ground and cutting and digging around tree stumps, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. The Canadian spokesman said pieces of the jet also had been found and turned over to the Canadian Aviation Safety Board, which has been investigating the crash.
Reagan Administration officials said today that they took a positive view of efforts in recent days to revive the peace process known as Contadora, but that they would continue to seek military aid for the rebels fighting Nicaragua’s Government. At the same time, they repeated that the United States would not resume direct talks with the Nicaraguan Government until the Sandinistas open a dialogue with the rebels. They also announced that the Administration’s special envoy to the region, Harry W. Shlaudeman, would begin a visit next week. The announcement came as high-level officials received the President-elect of Honduras, Jose Azcona Hoyo, for discussions on topics that included the difficulties in getting supplies to the Nicaraguan rebels. The talks — conducted by Vice President Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and John M. Poindexter, the national security adviser, among others — also touched on the economic needs and security concerns of Honduras. Elliott Abrams, the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, said in an interview with British journalists that it was “a mistake” to think that the activity of the rebels “undercuts Contadora.”
The Nicaraguan Government plans to name a heroine of the Sandinista revolution, Deputy Foreign Minister Nora Astorga, as its chief delegate to the United Nations. Miss Astorga has represented Nicaragua at several United Nations sessions in New York and elsewhere. One of her principal responsibilities at the Foreign Ministry has been to work with Nicaragua’s mission to the United Nations. She was nominated as Ambassador to the United States in 1984, but the Reagan Administration, exercising a rarely used right, rejected her nomination, saying that her guerrilla past rendered her undesirable in Washington. An authoritative Government source said today that Miss Astorga’s posting would be officially announced in about a month. He said the Government had not decided on a new post for the incumbent chief delegate, Javier Chamorro Mora. “It’s a question of a normal change,” the official said in an interview. “Javier has been in the job for several years, and Nora is well prepared for it.”
President Reagan places a call to President Leon Febrew-Cordero of the Republic of Ecuador.
The leaders of Burkina Faso and Mali smiled broadly, shook hands and hugged each other here today as they met for the first time since their countries fought a brief border war last month. Captain Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, General Moussa Traore of Mali and the leaders of six other West African nations met to seek a solution to the longstanding border dispute and to enforce a truce. Burkina Faso said Thursday that 48 of its nationals, most of them civilians, died in the fighting that began December 24. No official death toll had been issued by Mali.
South Africa refused today to allow nine clergymen from the United States and Canada to come here for a visit, accusing them of links to black guerrillas. The decision, by Home Affairs Minister Stoffel Botha, came a week after a United States Congressional delegation returned home and advocated stiffer economic sanctions to force an end to apartheid. The delegation was to be led by Bishop Philip Cousin, president of the National Council of Churches. It was invited by the South African Council of Churches, the anti-apartheid group that was host to the members of Congress. Also today, South African officials met with a delegation from Lesotho to discuss South African restrictions on border crossings in response to attacks by guerrillas reported to have been based in Lesotho. That country, which is surrounded by South Africa, says it is running short of gasoline and other vital supplies. But there appeared to be no resolution to the problem after the talks in Pretoria.
President Reagan’s cancer checkup found three “very small polyps,” which were removed from his colon. Doctors said they thought the polyps were “clinically benign,” the White House announced. The announcement said the growths would be tested for cancerous tissue and the results would be released as soon as they are available. The examination also disclosed a papule, or small growth, on Mr. Reagan’s face, from which tissue was taken for tests to determine whether it was cancerous. The three-paragraph statement said, “All indications are that when the lab results are in, they will confirm the President to be in excellent health.” The discovery of the new polyps only six months after surgery for cancer is unusual and unexpected, but not particularly a cause for alarm, according to leading cancer experts. The announcement followed a nearly six-hour examination of the President at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, his most extensive checkup since his surgery.
President Reagan addresses 115 members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Columbia’s landing was delayed again by bad weather at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The space shuttle’s landing there also had to be called off Thursday. Another try will be made tomorrow. Now the crew is to try to land at the Florida site Saturday at 7:31 AM. However, the weather forecast for Saturday at the Florida space center is “marginal,” according to Air Force meteorologists, raising the possibility of yet another delay. Today’s landing delay, the ninth operational delay of the trouble-plagued mission whose original December 18 launching was postponed seven times, posed no threat to the Columbia’s seven-member crew, who have plenty of food and fuel on board their craft. It also posed no immediate threat to this year’s ambitious schedule of 15 shuttle launchings, six more than last year. But fears of a schedule upset produced a tense drama early this morning as space agency officials evaluated the Florida weather and weighed the possibility of a rare nighttime landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Although an Edwards landing would have brought the winged spacecraft back on time, it would also have added about six days to the Columbia’s postflight turnaround. From California the spacecraft would have to be carried to Florida on the back of a Boeing 747 jetliner. The Columbia is to start another mission March 6.
A fundamental “Star Wars” problem has been underemphasized, a panel appointed by the Defense Department has concluded. This gap in the Strategic Defense Initiative concepts is the question of how to design adequate computer software to manage a future space-based antimissile system. The panel’s report is called “Computing in Support of Battle Management.” The panel asserted that developing an effective battle management system, using reliable computer programs, is “the paramount strategic defense problem.” The panel recommended that the Pentagon reverse its usual pattern of planning “to acquire the weapons first” and then devising “the supporting command, control and communications structure as an add-on.” The issue of the difficulty of developing reliable computer software to control a vast defensive system has been a key one raised in arguments over whether to pursue President Reagan’s plan.
President Reagan is considering issuance of a directive that would establish the State Department as the agency that would take the lead in dealing with international terrorism, Administration officials said today. The directive, if approved by Mr. Reagan, would be consistent with the recommendations of an interagency terrorism task force headed by Vice President Bush. The task force sent President Reagan a report last December with more than 50 recommendations for on terrorism. Officials said many of the recommendations incorporate aspects of existing policies. In clarifying the State Department’s role, the task force apparently sought to at least address a longstanding internal Administration dispute over proper response to terrorist attacks. It stopped short, however, of defining when the use of military force against terrorists is appropriate. This dispute has pitted Secretary of State George P. Shultz against Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger. Mr. Shultz has urged firm action, including the use of force against terrorists and countries that support them. Mr. Weinberger has criticized those who seek “instant gratification from some kind of bombing attack without being too worried about the details.”
Justice Stephen G. Crane acknowledged on Thursday with unusually forceful language how extraordinary the case of Bernhard H. Goetz had become. He called it “one of the most difficult of our generation,” and said that when Mr. Goetz shot four young men on an IRT subway train a year ago, his action “galvanized the world.” Still, the heart of Justice Crane’s opinion, a preview of the legal issues certain to emerge should Mr. Goetz ever be tried, concerned issues that are old indeed, though never satisfactorily resolved: When is the use of self-defense defensible? And through whose eyes — those of the crime victim or of a hypothetical “reasonable man” -must that determination be made? In dismissing the charges of attempted murder and assault against Mr. Goetz, Justice Crane ruled, in essence, that it was the subjective perceptions of Mr. Goetz, the traumatized victim of a previous subway assault, that must determine his culpability in the case. The prosecution erred, he concluded, by telling the grand jurors to ask themselves how they would have reacted had they found themselves in Mr. Goetz’s situation, instead of if they were Mr. Goetz himself.
Coretta Scott King’s efforts to carry out the unfinished work of her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., are acknowledged by almost everyone. Almost everyone credits Coretta Scott King with extraordinary success in carrying out the work of her husband, who was assassinated 18 years ago in Memphis, and in enhancing the public memory of Dr. King and his teachings. Without her efforts, those familiar with the situation say, there probably would have been no national holiday in his honor. The first will be observed Monday, and a Federal commission is sponsoring events here, in Washington and in a host of other cities. But there are many conflicts and contradictions about her efforts to use Atlanta’s $15 million Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a means of carrying out her husband’s unfinished agenda. Her tight personal control is said to have stifled the center’s growth.
A tank containing 2,000 pounds of a caustic chemical exploded today, killing two people, injuring at least 18 and sending a green cloud into the air. The explosion in the processing area of the Diamond Shamrock Corporation’s plant in Ashtabula, Ohio also caused a small fire. Rain and wind helped break up the chemical cloud and carry it over Lake Erie, where it posed no danger, said Allan Franks, chief of the public interest center for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
The Los Angeles District Attorney today dropped charges against five of the seven teachers and administrators at the McMartin Preschool in a child molestation case, saying the evidence against them “was incredibly weak.” Ira Reiner, the District Attorney took the action one week after a preliminary hearing in which Judge Aviva K. Bobb of Municipal Court ordered all seven defendants to stand trial on 135 counts of sexual molestation. The accusations included charges that the defendants, six women and one man, raped and sodomized nursery school children over a period of years. The hearing lasted 20 months and cost the county nearly $4 million. Mr. Reiner, who said in October he would thoroughly review the evidence in the case, announced his findings at a crowded news conference. He said he and his most senior prosecutors concluded that they would not be able to win guilty verdicts in all seven cases at trial.
Aldo Gucci, the former head of Gucci Shops Inc., pleaded guilty yesterday to criminal charges for failing to pay more than $7 million in Federal income taxes. Mr. Gucci, whose name has come to evoke elegance and wealth, waived his right to an indictment and trial. He admitted not reporting more than $11 million in personal income from his business, which sells fashionable leather goods in New York and other cities. As part of the plea agreement, he ment and must pay the rest of more than $7 million in taxes before sentencing, according to Howard Wilson, chief of the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney’s office.
Three convicted killers and a convicted burglar broke through six steel barriers blocking a tunnel for steam pipes and storm sewers and escaped from the Indiana State Prison, the authorities said today. Two of the inmates, convicted in a total of four slayings, were captured near Lafayette early today and returned, Charles W. Neary, an administrative assistant at the prison said. Mr. Neary said the four apparently forced their way into an abandoned power plant inside the prison Thursday night. They used a wrench taken from a workshop to break or force apart several barriers in the plant, the tunnel and a 36-inch storm sewer pipe. They crawled 500 yards through the pipe and emerged on a city street. Their prison uniforms were found in the woods and a car was stolen nearby.
Commander Donal M. Billig’s superiors at the Bethesda Naval Hospital decided to promote him to chief of cardiothoracic surgery but agreed among themselves that he was not to do heart operations without supervision, a witness testified today at Dr. Billig’s court-martial. The witness, Dr. Judy Schwartz, a Navy doctor, said the promotion was agreed upon in a meeting June 9, 1983. Dr. Billig got full privileges September 8, 1983. Dr. Schwartz was Dr. Billig’s predecessor in the Bethesda post. Dr. Billig is charged with five counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of patients and 24 counts of operating without the required supervision. “You agreed to give Dr. Billig one set of credentials on paper, but the understanding among all of you was that cardiothoracic surgery would be different?” asked a defense lawyer, Neil Worden. “Yes, sir,” said Captain Schwartz. In answer to another question she said the reason for the decision was “saving face” for Dr. Billig.
A red-carpet for Alice Walker, the writer, will be rolled out today in Eatonton, Georgia, her hometown, which is offering in her honor two benefit showings of “The Color Purple,” the movie version of the novel for which she received a Pulitzer Prize. Local residents and out-of-town moviegoers have already bought up all the tickets to the two benefit showings. There will be searchlights on the courthouse square to cut the Georgia sky, a red carpet rolled out by a troop of Boy Scouts and a small fleet of stretch limousines to ferry Miss Walker, her family, and Margaret Avery, one of the film’s stars, to the little movie house, which is ordinarily closed in winter.
A Los Angeles jury awarded $5.2 million today to a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp who asserted he had been emotionally tortured by the taunts of a man who kept telling him the Holocaust was a fiction. The jury in Los Angeles Superior Court deliberated only three hours and 45 minutes before finding that a Swedish publisher, Ditlieb Felderer, should be held responsible for damages to the plaintiff, Mel Mermelstein, for libel and intentional inflicting of emotional distress. Mr. Mermelstein’s hands trembled and he choked back tears while the clerk read the panel’s decision awarding him $500,000 in compensatory damages and $4.75 million in punitive damages. Mr. Felderer was not represented in court in the two-day trial because he never answered the complaint. Mr. Mermelstein’s attorneys hope to have any default judgment against him enforced by the Swedish Government. In testimony, Mr. Mermelstein tearfully recalled his experiences at the death camp, and of losing his brother and father in work camps and watching his mother and sister led to gas chambers.
The Alaska Supreme Court today declared invalid the state’s law that restricts hiring of nonresidents to work on public construction projects, saying that the United States Constitution protected nonresidents from job discrimination so the nation could function as an economic unit. The court said the law’s purpose was to exclude nonresidents from jobs so more jobs would be available to Alaskans.
The president of Temple University, situated in a black and Hispanic neighborhood in north Philadelphia, wants to make Spanish a requirement for graduation by 1990. “I think it is a national issue, and we may well be before our time,” the president, Dr. Peter J. Liacouras, said today. Such a requirement would help create a generation with an understanding and respect for the cultures of others and ease the problems of minority groups, he said. About 1,000 of the university’s 30,000 students take Spanish courses at Temple each year.
Harvard students circulated a petition today demanding the removal of iron grilles that had been placed over a dormitory’s heat vents to keep away homeless people seeking warmth. The petition also suggested the opening of a shelter in a dormitory basement. Harvard officials opposed both options.
Second Sundance Film Festival: “Smooth Talk” wins Grand Jury Prize Dramatic.
Tim Witherspoon beats defending champion Tony Tubbs by majority decision in 15 rounds at The Omni, Atlanta for WBA heavyweight boxing title
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1536.7 (-4.93)
Born:
Viktor Stålberg, Swedish National Team and NHL left wing (Olympics, 2018; NHL Champions, Stanley Cup-Blackhawks, 2013; Toronto Maple Leafs, Chicago Blackhawks, Nashville Predators, New York Rangers, Carolina Hurricanes, Ottawa Senators), in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Maurice Purify, NFL wide receiver (Cincinnati Bengals), in Eureka, California.
History Diaries 