Two days to live…
The loss of two Cabinet ministers in the last two weeks appeared to have not disturbed the confidence of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain. Mrs. Thatcher, responding to questions from journalists on British television, said the resignations and the continuing political crisis over the rescue of Britain’s only helicopter manufacturer would not force her to step down or undermine her Government’s effectiveness. With her government’s future in jeopardy, Thatcher indicated that she has no intention of resigning. “I think I will know when it’s time to go,” she said in an interview on British commercial television. “I do not think that time has come. I would like to go on to a third term.” Two of her top Cabinet ministers, Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine and Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan, have resigned in a dispute over the government’s handling of a rescue effort for the ailing Westland helicopter firm. Thatcher faces an emergency debate on the matter in the House of Commons today.
Press magnate Rupert Murdoch, owner of Britain’s largest national newspaper group, published the Sunday Times of London and the News of the World at new, computerized plants in east London and Glasgow despite a strike by two major unions. Murdoch thus became the first of Britain’s major national publishers to put out a newspaper with computerized typesetting and without the two major production unions, the National Graphical Association and the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades. The unions called out their nearly 6,000 members but were unable to halt distribution of the newspapers.
Plummeting oil prices suggest that petroleum’s worldwide dominance may be declining. In the last few months, prices have fallen by one-third to less than $20 for a 42-gallon barrel. If sustained, the drop in prices would affect everything from Sunday driving habits to solar energy projects, from the Soviet Union’s economy to immigration from Mexico. Current prices are about half of what they were at their peak five years ago. Some analysts are talking about $15 oil.”We went from economic slavery to economic freedom,” said Pierre Rinfret, who runs an economic consulting firm in New York. “The decline in the price of oil is one of the most bullish things for the future of the industrial world that I’ve seen in 35 years of forecasting.”
Portugal’s presidential elections completed their first round, giving a conservative, Diogo Freitas do Amaral, a commanding spot for the runoffs against former Prime Minister Mario Soares, a Socialist. Mr. Freitas do Amaral, a Christian Democrat, won nearly 47 percent. With nearly all the votes counted, Mr. Freitas do Amaral, a founder of the Christian Democratic Party, had 46.6 percent. To become President without a runoff election, a candidate had to poll more than half the votes, The strong showing made Mr. Freitas do Amaral a clear favorite for the runoff, analysts from many of the parties said.
Nearly three-quarters of the industrial workers and managers interviewed in a secret Polish Government poll rated the Polish economy as unsatisfactory to hopeless, while virtually none of those questioned believe the Government’s economic policies are correct. The poll was based on interviews with 800 workers and managers in steel mills, shipyards and smaller factories. In all, 49 questions were asked in the poll by interviewers from the Center of Public Opinion Research, which conveys its publicized and unpublicized findings to the highest levels of authority. In contrast to this selectively circulated data, the director of the opinion research group recently publicly outlined an end-of-the year profile of selected public opinion.
Bulgarian Communist Party leaders have dismissed two Politburo members and issued a call for a new “climate” in Bulgarian society, the official press agency BTA reported Saturday night. The agency, in a dispatch from Sofia, said Stanish Bonev was dropped as an alternate member and Todor Bozhinov was dismissed from full membership in the Politburo, the party’s leading body. BTA said statements made at a meeting of the party’s Central Committee on Friday and Saturday “should serve as a basis for establishing a new economic, political and ideological climate.” The report did not elaborate.
Israeli Cabinet minister Ezer Weizman made a previously unannounced visit to Cairo and met with President Hosni Mubarak on settling a border dispute and upgrading relations. Diplomatic sources said Weizman’s visit was related to the recent Israeli government decision to accept binding international arbitration on Taba, a disputed strip of beach in the Sinai. Israel’s acceptance of arbitration was part of a larger package calling for promotion of bilateral relations and the return of the Egyptian ambassador to Israel.
The chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, met with King Hussein of Jordan today for the first time in three months and was expected to give the King the P.L.O.’s final position on two key United Nations resolutions. The resolutions, 242 and 338, call for an end to hostilities, Israeli withdrawal from Arab territories occupied since 1967 and Arab recognition of Israel and its right to live in peace. No details of the meeting held today were made available, but a senior P.L.O. official said the organization “would only accept the two key resolutions on their own in return for ironclad guarantees from the U.S. for direct involvement in a suggested international peace conference and an American recognition of the Palestinian people’s national rights, including its right for self-determination.” The P.L.O. has objected to the resolutions because they fail to call for a Palestinian state and refer to Palestinians as refugees. Jordan had been demanding that the P.L.O. leadership publicly accept the resolutions in order to move the stalemated peace process forward.
Lebanon’s Cabinet is to meet today in an emergency session to consider referring to Parliament a Syrian-sponsored plan for peace in Lebanon. The Cabinet was summoned by President Amin Gemayel, who appeared to be heading off an opposition call for his resignation. The President’s office said in a communique that if the Cabinet failed to meet, he would ask the Speaker of Parliament to convene the legislature to debate and decide on the plan, which has split the Lebanese and raised the prospect of reviving a full-scale civil war. The Cabinet has not met since August. The announcement came a few hours after news organizations here reported that Mr. Gemayel’s opponents were planning to meet in Damascus Monday to serve him with an ultimatum. Beirut’s leading newspaper, An Nahar, said that the President would be given one week in which to resign and that if he did not, Syrian-backed militia groups would force him to step down.
Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, was shown today on Libyan television returning to Misurata harbor hours after he announced he was sailing to meet the United States Sixth Fleet. On Saturday, Colonel Qaddafi arranged to have a group of foreign reporters flown 125 miles from Tripoli to the Misurata naval base to watch him board a 350-ton patrol boat carrying four missiles. Reporters who followed on the colonel’s personal yacht last saw the colonel sailing northeast into the Gulf of Sidra on the bridge of the patrol boat. He had said he would sail 300 miles to Benghazi on the eastern side of the gulf “to prove to the Americans that we are here.” But Libyan television today showed films of the colonel returning to the harbor at Misurata on Saturday, a few hours after he left and long before he could have made the round trip to Benghazi. The United States and all other Western powers have refused to recognize Libya’s claim that the entire gulf south of 32 degrees 30 minutes north latitude lies within its territorial waters, rather than the traditional 12-mile limit. On Thursday, the Sixth Fleet announced it would conduct naval and air exercises off Libya, including the Gulf of Sidra.
Less than a week before the deadline for complying with President Reagan’s sanctions against Libya, many American companies doing business there are still unsure of what they will do. But most of the companies operating through foreign subsidiaries say they believe they will be able to carry on business as usual. But lawyers who specialize in international trade issues say that until there is further guidance from the Federal Government, it is impossible to know exactly which activities will be allowed to continue in Libya after the sanctions take effect Feb. 1. “The big question is how hard a line the U.S. will take in looking at the foreign subsidiaries,” said John Ellicott of Covington & Burling, a law firm based in Washington, D.C. Mr. Ellicott is representing several clients concerned with the sanctions.
A West German company will deliver 60 Wildcat anti-aircraft systems to Saudi Arabia in March with permission from the Bonn government, the magazine Der Spiegel reported. The anti-aircraft system is manufactured by Krauss-Maffei, and each weapon includes two 30-millimeter guns that can be mounted on armored vehicles. The magazine said the value of the Wildcat deal is between $3.2 million and $4.8 million. The report of the Saudi sale came as Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres arrived in Bonn for three days of talks.
The new leader of South Yemen, Haider abu Bakr Attas, chaired his first Cabinet meeting since taking power last week amid reports that the man he ousted, Ali Nasser Hasani, is massing thousands of loyal followers in his home region of Abyan to try to regain control. A radio station broadcasting from Abyan that was monitored in neighboring Yemen said that Hasani had given his foes until Wednesday to relinquish power or face attack. Aden radio reported that Attas met with Soviet Ambassador Vladislav Zhukov to discuss ways to stabilize the situation.
Bulldozers removed charred tanks from the streets of Aden today as the leaders controlling the city organized mass burials for victims of battles between rival Marxist factions. Government offices, banks and schools remained closed, but shops were open. Army jeeps toured the city, calling on airport employees and the staff of the Southern Yemen airline Alyemda to report to work. The airport was officially said to have reopened for daytime flights on Saturday.
Iranian Prime Minister Hussein Moussavi announced that Iran will cut its oil production by 50% “until further notice,” the official Iranian news agency reported. The agency did not say what Iran’s production was before the cut, but its export quota allotted by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is 2.3 million barrels a day. Moussavi, who made the announcement after a Cabinet meeting in Tehran, said the decision was made “in an effort to thwart plots aimed at weakening oil-exporting countries.” A growing glut of oil worldwide has driven prices down during the last two weeks.
President Babrak Karmal of Afghanistan asserted today that the United States should stop aiding Muslim guerrillas if it wanted an end to the war between the rebels and his Soviet-backed Government. Mr. Karmal told visiting Western reporters that Washington, which last month said it would help guarantee any negotiated settlement to the war, would also have to press Pakistan to sign a peace settlement with Afghanistan. Some Soviet military advisers might stay in Afghanistan, Mr. Karmal said, even after a settlement had been reached in United Nations-sponsored peace talks in Geneva if outside interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs were to continue. Asked about Washington’s promised guarantee that the flow of arms to the rebels would cease as part of a peace settlement, Mr. Karmal said: “Words are not important. The practice is important.”
The Indian Government today delayed carrying out a key portion of an accord intended to settle the crisis in the troubled state of Punjab. The day passed without major incident in the Punjab and the rest of northern India, despite earlier fears that the bombings, killings and other violence of the previous week might continue. In New Delhi, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi attended the annual Republic Day parade and celebration with the special guest of honor, Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou of Greece. The day celebrates the establishment of a republic in India in 1950, two and a half years after independence.
Cambodian guerrillas of the Communist Khmer Rouge said today that they killed 30 Vietnamese soldiers and wounded 20 last week in a town near Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge radio, monitored in Bangkok, said guerrillas attacked the Vietnamese January 19 at Sithor Kandal in Prey Veng Province and “liberated” the town. Prey Veng is about 30 miles east of Phnom Penh. The Vietnamese twice tried to recapture the town that day but were repulsed by the guerrillas, the clandestine radio said. No Khmer Rouge casualty figures were given. The broadcast did not say how long the rebels held the town. The report could not be independently confirmed. The Khmer Rouge is joined with two non-Communist groups fighting Vietnamese forces that invaded Cambodia in 1978.
Only days before the arrival of international observers to monitor the February 7 presidential elections, President Ferdinand E. Marcos today criticized what he called the “meddlers and interventionists” who will be watching the vote. “To preserve our sovereign integrity, we must prove to them nobody need tell us how to hold a clean and democratic election,” Mr. Marcos said at a caucus of his party leaders. A statement from the presidential palace quoted him as saying: “The eyes of the world are already focused on us. In fact, there are already meddlers and interventionists in our midst.”
Since the arrival of a new American Ambassador to Chile, the United States has taken a more aggressive role in supporting moderate opposition leaders seeking a return to democracy, according to diplomats and opposition leaders. During his first months in Chile, Ambassador Harry G. Barnes Jr., a 59-year-old career diplomat, has raised some eyebrows by holding frequent meetings with political and human rights officials. Typical of his more visible image was a photograph that appeared in local newspapers showing him attending a human rights candlelight service. The Ambassador’s style has irritated the Chilean President, General Augusto Pinochet, who said publicly less than a month after Mr. Barnes’s arrival in November that the “function of some diplomats” was not to act as “correctors.” To do so, the general added, was to “leave behind the minimum norms of good relations.”
Victory for Ugandan rebels was claimed by the rebels’ leaders. They announced that they had overthrown the Government after seizing Kampala, the capital. Major General Tito Okello, who became Uganda’s head of state after leading a military coup last July, was reported by a Kenyan newspaper to have said that he would fight on. Western diplomats and other sources said, however, that thousands of the military leader’s troops were surrendering, others were retreating north toward the Sudan and east toward Kenya, and still others were fighting among themselves over whether to stage a counteroffensive or to lay down their arms.
Roman Catholic bishops celebrated a mass today in this black township near Pretoria in what they said was a demonstration of solidarity with victims of apartheid. A racially mixed group of about 2,000 people packed into St. Peter’s Clavar Church in Mamelodi to hear the 40 bishops, who came from as far away as Belgium and Canada, make an appeal for peace and reconciliation. The service was held in Mamelodi as a memorial to 13 people who died in riots there on November 21. The 13 died after the police fired tear gas canisters to break up a march by thousands of protesters demanding the withdrawal of security forces from the township. In a symbolic renunciation of violence, worshipers today brought gasoline bombs, whips, stones and tear gas canisters to the bishops, who threw them into garbage cans. The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, which organized a similar ceremony last year in Sebokeng, a township south of Johannesburg, said in a statement that the mass was “in solidarity with the victims of apartheid.”
A gloomy forecast prompted NASA to scrub today’s scheduled launching of the shuttle mission to send schoolteacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe and others into space, but the sun shone after all and Challenger could have lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center, space agency officials said. The launch, already postponed once because of bad weather, was rescheduled for 9:30 AM EST tomorrow. It was the second weather-related postponement of the launching of the Challenger and its crew of seven, one of whom is a New Hampshire schoolteacher. The first came Saturday when poor weather in North Africa, the location of two emergency landing sites, forced the launching to fall back from Saturday to this morning. As if to torment the crew, the skies were clear today at the time the shuttle was to have taken off. The expected storm came along soon afterward, however, and things became even gloomier this afternoon when the latest Air Force weather forecasts raised the possibility of heavy clouds at the Monday launching time.
If the Challenger is not launched Monday and the flight is rescheduled again, the delay could upset later shuttle launchings. Thirteen more launchings are scheduled this year. The Challenger’s original launching date, last Wednesday, was set back three times as a result of the preceding Columbia mission, which set a record with 14 operational delays. The seven astronauts spent part of today relaxing and reviewing the flight plan for their mission. This morning Mrs. McAuliffe, 37 years old, a social sciences teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, and another crew member, Gregory B. Jarvis, an engineer with the Hughes Aircraft Company, were seen riding bicycles at the Kennedy Space Center. Mrs. McAuliffe, who was born in Boston and raised in Framingham, Mass., is a fan of the New England Patriots and planned to watch at least part of their Super Bowl football game against the Chicago Bears. The Challenger’s mission commander, Francis R. Scobee, and the pilot, Commander Michael J. Smith of the Navy, today made practice landings at the shuttle runway in a jet modified to handle as the shuttle does in its glide back to the earth. In space the astronauts are to carry out several science experiments and launch two satellites, a $5 million one to study Halley’s comet and a $100 million one to relay spacecraft communications around the earth. Mrs. McAuliffe is to teach two lessons from space that students in hundreds of schools are to watch on the Public Broadcasting Service. The Challenger’s other crew members are Dr. Judith A. Resnick, an electrical engineer; Dr. Ronald E. McNair, a physicist; and Lieutenant Colonel Ellison S. Onizuka of the Air Force.
The major moons of Uranus were described by Voyager 2 scientists as bizarre, exotic and extraordinary after they examined features that were revealed in striking photographs transmitted last week by the spacecraft. Scientists were so astonished and elated by the discoveries that they had not yet turned their thoughts to the possible explanations for what they were seeing. In particular, the moon Miranda, a 310-mile-wide object that once was only a faint point of light in the sky, was emerging as an icy world unlike any other ever seen in the solar system. In the Voyager pictures, taken Friday 2 billion miles from the earth and made public today, the surface of Miranda is seen to be a rugged mix of valleys and deep fractures, long ridges and a multitude of craters, glacial flows, broad terraces like uneven stacks of pancakes and puzzling features that resemble a racetrack and a bright chevron. Geology of Mercury and Mars “It’s all the strange places rolled into one,” said Dr. Laurence A. Soderblom, deputy leader of the photographic interpretation team. Dr. Soderblom, who is with the United States Geological Survey, said Miranda seemed to be a “bizarre hybrid” of the geology of the planets Mercury and Mars and some of the large moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
Senate tax-revision legislation will be enacted this year and will be similar to the tax bill proposed by President Reagan last spring and that passed by the House last month, according to most Senators on the Finance Committee, which is preparing to take up the issue. Those sweeping measures would sharply lower income tax rates, end many special tax breaks, shift billions of dollars in taxes from individuals to businesses and raise the same amount of revenue as the current law. Only a few Senators are enthusiastic about the merits of the proposed legislation, but nearly all believe the politics of the situation almost guarantee enactment. For example, Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, one of the most influential Democrats on the panel, said he thought the President’s proposals and the House bill would damage the economy in general and the nation’s manufacturers in particular. But he added that “the President must have a bill to dispel the notion he’s a lame duck, and the Republican leaders must show in an election year that they can deliver for the President.”
The vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee declined to comment today on reports that a high-ranking official of the K.G.B. had defected to the United States and was living here under an assumed name. Congressional sources said Saturday that the K.G.B. official fled last year and was providing American intelligence officers with valuable information about the K.G.B., the Soviet intelligence and security agency. The lawmaker, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said that the Central Intelligence Agency had told him that there was no such Soviet official. But Mr. Leahy would not comment when asked if he has learned of the defector from others.
AIDS has become the most common infectious disease in newborn infants in some parts of New York City, and the disease is spreading rapidly among children even as the adult AIDS epidemic slows, researchers said. Fighting the spread of children’s AIDS may be especially difficult because most infants with AIDS are born to mothers with no outward signs of disease, said Dr. Howard Minkoff, director of obstetrics at the State University of New York-Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. Of 34 mothers whose babies were born with AIDS at Minkoff’s hospital, only four had any symptoms of acquired immune deficiency syndrome or an AIDS-related complex known as ARC, a milder form of the disease. The mothers were the source of the AIDS infections in their children, however, and some of them later developed the disease, he said.
President Reagan participates in a pre-Super Bowl game interview with correspondent for NBC News.
The President and First Lady watch Super Bowl XX between the Chicago Bears and the New England Patriots.
Disruption of construction projects around the country has followed the House’s approval of a tax bill severely restricting sales of municipal bonds. Because the provisions are retroactive to January 1, 1986, financing for some major projects has been postponed.
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued an emergency order requiring prompt repairing of 27 jet engines that it said had been improperly overhauled by a Miami maintenance company. Another 78 engines will have to undergo special inspection soon to see if they need repairs. The engine components involved are combustion chambers of Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines, which power over half the airliners built in the non-Communist world. It was the explosive failure of a JT8D combustion chamber that led to a fire on a Boeing 737 taking off from Manchester, England, in August, killing 55 of the 137 people on board.
Eastern Airlines and the pilots’ union broke off intensive talks Sunday evening, triggering a 30-day cooling-off period that will end three days before a deadline set by the debt-ridden airline’s lenders, officials said. Eastern owes $2.5 billion, including $581 million to lenders who have set a February 28 deadline for the airline to sign wage and work rule agreements containing concessions from its three labor unions. The lenders have required ratification of the agreements by the end of March.
PTL President Jim Bakker used donations to his television ministry to purchase personal items such as a mink coat, a sports car and a houseboat, documents recently released by the Federal Communications Commission show. The records also show that Bakker told viewers in 1978 and 1979, when donations totaled about $350,000, that their money was going to South Korean and Brazilian programs either already under way or soon to be started. But the PTL, based in Fort Mill, South Carolina, sent no aid until a year later. The Charlotte Observer reported Sunday that PTL used the donations to pay for part of its multimillion-dollar Heritage USA complex.
The number of police departments inclined to make arrests in cases of minor domestic violence has tripled in just one year, according to a 1985 survey of more than 140 cities conducted by the Washington-based Crime Control Institute. It found that the police in 44 cities of more than 100,000 population had policies encouraging arrests in minor domestic assaults, up from 14 of those cities in 1984.
Nine people were killed and four hospitalized in a fire early today in a row house basement apartment in Northwest Washington frequented by transients. All of the victims were in the basement apartment, which neighbors described as a popular gathering place for many poor Hispanic people who went there after nearby taverns closed. “It was like a neighborhood bar down there,” said Daniel del Valle, who lived upstairs and escaped by climbing out a second-story window. “I’d be going to work at 6 o’clock in the morning and a party would be going on.”
Meatpackers striking Geo. A. Hormel & Co. in Austin, Minnesota, called for a nationwide boycott of the company’s products as they reviewed a fact-finder’s interpretation of a proposal for ending the five-month-old walkout. Members of local P-9, striking to protest proposed pay cuts, demonstrated while meetings with the fact-finder continued.
The U.S. Army has reversed earlier statements and said that it found a poisonous chemical at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal five months before reports disclosed that the chemical had polluted nearby drinking wells. Until Friday, Army officials had asserted that the toxic solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE, was discovered only after The Denver Post reported in July that the chemical had contaminated wells supplying 30,000 people in the South Adams County Water District. In November, four months after The Post’s report, the Army disclosed its finding of the solvent in water under the arsenal. On Friday, however, a spokesman at the arsenal, Mary Ekis, said the Army had the first test results from well samples last February. The results were buried in a mass of arsenal information placed on computer tapes and were not recovered until Thursday, she said. The solvent is widely used as a degreaser that can damage the nervous system, kidneys and liver in humans.
Coast Guard helicopters plucked Haitians from a crowded 40-foot sailboat foundering in the stormy Atlantic with as many as 80 people aboard, and two cutters pulled up alongside to complete the rescue, authorities said in Miami. Three helicopters struggled in howling winds to remove 28 Haitians from the disabled sailboat in 20-foot waves, but the air rescue was suspended with about 50 people still aboard the small craft when the cutters arrived for a less risky ship-to-ship evacuation.
A Baltimore survey on teen-age sex and health initiated by the school superintendent has been withdrawn and is being redesigned because of community opposition. It has raised a major controversy with racial overtones. Baltimore has one of the highest teenage-pregnancy rates.
Slower Medicare payments this year are expected because of budget cuts scheduled to begin March 1 under the new budget-balancing law, Federal health officials said. Kevin Moley, a Medicare official, said the average time required to pay physicians and beneficiaries, now 23 days, would lengthen to 34 days by September. The average time required to pay hospitals will increase to 30 days from 20.
A teen-age girl suffering from Hodgkin’s disease sent a word of thanks today to her natural mother — whom she has never met — for agreeing to donate bone marrow needed to save her life. The girl, Leonarda Marie Foss, 16 years old, sent her message through her adoptive parents in a prepared statement released by Barnes Hospital, where she has been hospitalized since Thursday. “Leonarda Marie said to tell the news people to thank her natural mother,” the adoptive parents, Bob and Marcelene Foss of Ava, Illinois, said in the statement. A hospital spokesman, Tom Mosher, said Leonarda Marie’s natural mother underwent tests today to see if her marrow would be compatible. The natural mother, who was found Saturday through lawyers in Portland, Oregon, where Leonarda Marie was born, has asked to remain anonymous. Doctors were hopeful the transplant could take place this week.
NFL Championship Game, Super Bowl XX:
The Chicago Bears demolished the New England Patriots, 46-10, before a Superdome crowd of 73,818 at Super Bowl XX in New Orleans. They won their first National Football League championship since they beat the Giants for the 1963 title.
The Patriots took the then-quickest lead in Super Bowl history after linebacker Larry McGrew recovered a fumble by running back Walter Payton at the Bears 19-yard line on the second play of the game (the Bears themselves would break this record in Super Bowl XLI when Devin Hester ran back the opening kickoff for a touchdown). Bears quarterback Jim McMahon took responsibility for this fumble after the game, saying he had called the wrong play which left Payton alone with no blockers. This set up kicker Tony Franklin’s 36-yard field goal 1:19 into the first quarter after three incomplete passes by quarterback Tony Eason (during the first of those three, tight end Lin Dawson went down with torn ligaments in his knee). “I looked up at the message board”, said Chicago linebacker Mike Singletary, “and it said that 15 of the 19 teams that scored first won the game. I thought, yeah, but none of those 15 had ever played the Bears.” Chicago struck back with a 7-play, 59-yard drive, featuring a 43-yard pass completion from McMahon to wide receiver Willie Gault, to set up kicker Kevin Butler’s 28-yard field goal, tying the score at 3–3. After both teams traded punts, defensive end Richard Dent and defensive tackle Steve McMichael forced a fumble on Eason that was recovered by defensive tackle Dan Hampton on the New England 13-yard line. Chicago then drove to the 3-yard line, but had to settle for a 24-yard field goal by Butler after defensive tackle William “The Refrigerator” Perry was tackled for a 1-yard loss while trying to throw his first NFL pass on a halfback option play. The score gave Chicago their first lead of the game, 6–3, and they would never trail New England again. On the Patriots’ ensuing drive, Dent forced a fumble on running back Craig James, which was recovered by Singletary at the 13-yard line. Two plays later, Bears fullback Matt Suhey scored on an 11-yard touchdown run to increase the lead to 13–3. New England took the ensuing kickoff and ran one play before the first quarter ended, which resulted in positive yardage for the first time in the game (a 3-yard run by James). James, who earlier gained 258 total rushing yards in the three AFC playoff games, only managed to gain one yard on five rushing attempts in the Super Bowl.
After an incomplete pass and a tackle for a 4-yard loss by Hampton on tight end Greg Hawthorne, the Patriots had to send in punter Rich Camarillo again, and wide receiver Keith Ortego returned the ball 12 yards to the 41-yard line. The Bears subsequently drove 59 yards in 10 plays, featuring a 24-yard reception by Suhey, to score on McMahon’s 2-yard touchdown run to increase their lead, 20–3. After the ensuing kickoff, New England lost 13 yards in 3 plays and had to punt again, but got the ball back with great field position when linebacker Don Blackmon stripped the ball from Suhey and cornerback Raymond Clayborn recovered the fumble at the New England 46. During the punt, Ortego forgot what the play call was for the punt return, and the ensuing chaos resulted in him being penalized for handing off a fair catch to cornerback Leslie Frazier, who then suffered a career-ending knee injury while being tackled by Hawthorne. Patriots head coach Raymond Berry then replaced Eason with Steve Grogan, who had spent the previous week hoping he would have the opportunity to step onto the NFL’s biggest stage. “I probably won’t get a chance”, he had told reporters a few days before the game. “I just hope I can figure out some way to get on the field. I could come in on the punt-block team and stand behind the line and wave my arms, or something.” But on his first drive, Grogan could only lead the Patriots to the Chicago 37-yard line, and they decided to punt rather than risk a long field goal attempt. The Bears then marched 72 yards in 11 plays, which included a 29-yard reception by wide receiver Ken Margerum, moving the ball inside the Patriots’ 10-yard line. New England kept Chicago out of the end zone, but Butler kicked a 24-yard field goal on the last play of the half to give the Bears a 23–3 halftime lead. The end of the first half was controversial. With 21 seconds left, McMahon scrambled to the Patriots’ 3-yard line and was stopped inbounds. With the clock ticking down, players from both teams were fighting, and the Bears were forced to snap the ball before the officials formally put it back into play, allowing McMahon to throw the ball out of bounds and stop the clock with three seconds left. The Bears were penalized five yards for delay of game, but according to NFL rules, 10 seconds should have also been run off the clock during such a deliberate clock-stopping attempt in the final two minutes of a half. In addition, a flag should have been thrown for fighting (also according to NFL rules). This would have likely resulted in offsetting penalties, which would still allow for a field goal attempt. Meanwhile, the non-call on the illegal snap was promptly acknowledged by the officials and reported by NBC sportscasters during halftime, but the resulting field goal was not taken away from the Bears (because of this instance, the NFL instructed officials to strictly enforce the 10-second run-off rule at the start of the 1986 season). The Bears had dominated New England in the first half, holding them to 21 offensive plays (only four of which resulted in positive yardage), −19 total offensive yards, two pass completions, one first down, and 3 points. While Eason was in the game, the totals were six possessions, one play of positive yardage out of 15 plays, no first downs, 3 points, 3 punts, 2 turnovers, no pass completions, and -36 yards of total offense. Meanwhile, Chicago gained 236 yards and scored 23 points themselves.
After the Patriots received the second-half kickoff, they managed to get one first down, but then had to punt after Grogan was sacked twice, first by Dent for 5 yards, then by linebacker Otis Wilson for 10. Camarillo, who punted four times in the first half, managed to pin the Bears back at their own 4-yard line with a then-Super Bowl record 62-yard punt. But the Patriots’ defense still could not stop the Bears’ offense. On the first play, McMahon faked a handoff to Payton, then threw a 60-yard completion to Gault from his own end zone, followed by a 19-yard pass to tight end Emery Moorehead. Seven plays later, McMahon finished the Super Bowl-record 96-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to increase Chicago’s lead to 30–3. On the third play of the Patriots’ second drive of the quarter, Grogan threw a pass that was tipped by tight end Derrick Ramsey and intercepted by Bears cornerback Reggie Phillips (who filled in for Frazier), who returned it 28 yards for a touchdown to increase the lead to 37–3. On the second play of their ensuing possession, the Patriots turned the ball over yet again when wide receiver Cedric Jones lost a fumble after catching a 19-yard pass from Grogan and taking a hit by safety Gary Fencik, and linebacker Wilber Marshall returned the fumble 13 yards to New England’s 37-yard line. Five plays later, McMahon’s 27-yard pass to wide receiver Dennis Gentry moved the ball to the 1-yard line, setting up perhaps the most memorable moment of the game. Perry lined up as the running back in a power-I formation and scored on a 1-yard touchdown run, as he had done twice in the regular season. His touchdown (while plowing over McGrew in the process) made the score 44–3 in favor of Chicago. The Bears’ three touchdowns is still a Super Bowl third quarter record for most points scored, while their 41-point lead is the record for largest margin going into the fourth quarter. Perry’s unexpected touchdown cost Las Vegas sports books hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses from prop bets.
The Patriots finally reached the end zone early in the fourth quarter, advancing the ball 76 yards in 12 plays and scoring on an 8-yard fourth-down touchdown pass from Grogan to wide receiver Irving Fryar. The Bears’ defense dominated the Patriots for the rest of the game, and recorded a forced fumble by defensive back Shaun Gayle on Ramsey that was recovered by Singletary, followed by a 46-yard interception return to the New England 5-yard line by linebacker Jim Morrissey. The Bears then turned the ball over on downs, but nevertheless capitalized on Morrissey’s interception when defensive lineman Henry Waechter tackled Grogan in the end zone for a safety to make the final score 46–10. After both teams exchanged punts, Chicago reached midfield to run out the clock and claim their first Super Bowl title. One oddity in the Bears’ victory was that Payton had a relatively poor performance running the football and did not score a touchdown in Super Bowl XX, his only Super Bowl appearance during his Hall of Fame career. Many people including Mike Ditka have claimed that the reason for this was due to the fact that the Patriots’ defensive scheme was centered on stopping Payton. Although Payton was ultimately the Bears’ leading rusher during the game, the Patriots’ defense held him to only 61 yards on 22 carries, with his longest run being only 7 yards. He was given several opportunities to score near the goal line, but New England stopped him every time before he reached the end zone (such as his 2-yard loss from the New England 3-yard line a few plays before Butler’s second field goal, and his 2-yard run from the 4-yard line right before McMahon’s first rushing touchdown). Thus, Ditka opted to go for other plays to counter the Patriots’ defense. Ditka has since stated that his biggest regret of his career was not creating a scoring opportunity for Payton during the game.
McMahon, who completed 12 out of 20 passes for 256 yards, became the first quarterback to score two rushing touchdowns in the Super Bowl. Gault finished the game with 129 receiving yards on just 4 receptions, an average of 32.3 yards per catch. He also gained 49 yards on four kickoff returns. The Patriots had the opening kickoff, two on scores and the last a free kick following the safety. Suhey had 11 carries for 52 yards rushing and a touchdown, and caught a pass for 24 yards. Singletary tied a Super Bowl record with 2 fumble recoveries. Eason became the first Super Bowl starting quarterback without a pass completion, finishing 0 for 6 with no interceptions. Grogan completed 17 out of 30 passes for 177 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions. Although fullback Tony Collins was the Patriots’ leading rusher, he was limited to just 4 yards on 3 carries, and caught 2 passes for 19 yards. New England receiver wide Stephen Starring returned 7 kickoffs for 153 yards and caught 2 passes for 39 yards. The Patriots, as a team, only recorded 123 total offensive yards, the second-lowest total in Super Bowl history.
Chicago Bears 46, New England Patriots 10
Born:
Gerald Green, NBA shooting guard and small forward (Boston Celtics, Minnesota Timberwolves; Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, New Jersey Nets, Indiana Pacers, Phoenix Suns, Miami Heat), in Houston, Texas.
Chad Kolarik, NHL centre (Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers), in Abington, Pennsylvania.
Kizzmekia Corbett, American viral immunologist (U.S. Vaccine Research Center, developed the Moderna COVID vaccine), in Hurdle Mills, North Carolina.
Matt Heafy, American-Japanese musician (Trivium), in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan.
History Diaries 