Moscow will not insist that the U.S. abandon development of a space-based missile defense as condition for an agreement to reduce medium-range missiles, according to Western diplomats in Moscow. They said American officials were recently informed of the Soviet Union’s position on the issue. They said that after some weeks of uncertainty about the Soviet position, American officials were recently told privately that Moscow would not link an accord on medium-range nuclear weapons to President Reagan’s program to develop a space-based missile shield. The program, the Strategic Defense Initiative, is popularly known as the “Star Wars” plan. The diplomats said Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, made a definitive statement about the issue in a meeting Thursday in the Kremlin with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.
An intelligence estimate made public by the Joint Chiefs of Staff contradicts President Reagan’s assertion that the Soviet Union has violated a key arms-control provision. The President said last month that Moscow had violated its commitment to not deploy more intercontinental missiles and bombers than it had in 1979 when it signed the second treaty to limit strategic weapons. The new intelligence estimate inconsistent with this is in a report by the Joint Chiefs on the “United States Military Posture,” which was presented to Congress this week in connection with the Administration’s military spending request for 1987. President Reagan said in his December report that the Soviet Union had violated the Soviet commitment, made in 1981, to not increase the number of missile launchers and intercontinental bombers above 2,504, the number in place when the second strategic arms limitation treaty was signed.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, says the dissident Andrei D. Sakharov cannot leave his country because he knows strategic secrets, according to an interview to be published Saturday in the French Communist Party newspaper. Mr. Gorbachev was quoted by the newspaper, L’Humanite, as saying that Dr. Sakharov “is still considered in the possession of state secrets of particular importance” and thus cannot leave the Soviet Union. He said Dr. Sakharov “committed illegal acts” and that normal legal measures “were taken in his case.” “At the present time,” Mr. Gorbachev told the newspaper, “the situation is the following: Sakharov lives in Gorky under normal conditions. He is continuing his scientific activity. He is still a titular member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. His health, as far as I know, is normal.” Over the years, there have been repeated calls for Moscow to allow Dr. Sakharov, who is in internal exile in Gorky, to emigrate to the West.
Senior Muslim military officers said today that the Lebanese Army should be neutral in the conflict between President Amin Gemayel and his Syrian-backed opponents, and they asked that the regular troops be withdrawn from the confrontation lines. The call was issued by 14 officers with ranks of brigadier general and colonel, led by the army Chief of Staff, Major General Mahmoud Tai Abu Dargham. The call coincided with reports that President Gemayel, a Christian, had ordered reinforcements from Christian army units sent to the eastern hills to protect the presidential palace and his hometown to withstand increasing pressure from Muslim and leftist militias. Press reports here said the contingents were pulled out of positions along the Green Line in Beirut. Christian militiamen replaced them and put up new barricades, heightening tension between Moslem and Christian sections of the city. Shooting broke out on the Green Line, closing all crossing points for several hours.
Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi said today that his air force would intercept any Israeli civilian plane found within range over the Mediterranean and would force it to land in Libya. The Libyan leader said he had issued the orders to his air force as retaliation for Israel’s interception of a Libyan civilian jet on Tuesday. Colonel Qaddafi’s statement came a day after the United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel for “aerial hijacking and piracy.” Ten nations voted for the resolution, and four abstained. The Israelis said they were looking for Palestinian terrorist leaders when they intercepted the Libyan civilian plane. The plane, which was detained at an Israeli airfield for seven hours, turned out to be carrying a Syrian Government delegation returning to Damascus from an Arab conference here. Colonel Qaddafi, speaking at a news conference in his office at the military barracks at Azizia outside Tripoli, said he intended to have Israeli civilian planes searched for “Israeli terrorists” wanted by Libyan courts. He said these included Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Cabinet Minister, who he said was responsible for the “massacres of Palestinians” at the Sabra and Shatila refugee settlements in Lebanon in 1982; former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, “responsible for the massacres of Palestinians in 1948” in the Palestinian town of Deir Yassin, and other Israeli “terrorists” who had killed prominent Palestinians.
Pope John Paul II arrived in Cochin, heartland of Roman Catholicism in southwestern India, today preaching a message of unity among Christians who have been divided by politics, forms of worship and history. Crowds were enthusiastic as the Pope arrived in Kerala, the most heavily Roman Catholic state in India and the region where European explorers arrived in their search for the spices of the East. At a prayer service before 300,000 people in Trichur, 55 miles north of here, John Paul married 152 couples and presented a poor family with a key to a house built in a program involving the church, the government and private groups. A woman was killed in Trichur when a wall collapsed on her under the weight of a crowd gathered to see the Pope, local officials said.
Corazon C. Aquino claimed victory in the Philippine presidential election, and President Ferdinand E. Marcos said, “I probably have won.” The official vote count slowed virtually to a halt. Ten hours after the polls closed, the official commission on elections had published returns from only 23 of the 86,000 precincts. A respected poll-watching group that is relied on here to offer an independent assessment put Mrs. Aquino in the lead by a larger margin with more than a quarter of the vote recorded. In a statement issued by her office, Mrs. Aquino said: “The trend is clear and irreversible. The people and I have won and we know it. Nothing can take our victory from us.” “Mrs. Aquino plans to call on Marcos to arrange for an orderly transition of power,” an Aquino spokesman said today. He said the call would be made “when the trend is irreversible, probably within the next 48 hours.” A spokesman for the President called an urgent press conference at 3:30 A.M. to condemn Mrs. Aquino’s statement and urged that no claims of victory be made until all returns are in. Senator Richard Lugar, the co-chairman of an official delegation of American observers, accused the government today of trying to “shape the return” by reporting votes from areas where the President is strong while holding back on the results from Manila, where Mrs. Aquino has her heaviest support. “The Manila vote has been held down by systematic harassment,” said the Indiana Republican. “My own political judgment is that the Government concluded the results from Manila would not be good.”
Gunmen invaded a polling place set up in a public school in the Muntinlupa, the Philippines. They fired rifles into the air in the courtyard and burst into classrooms shouting and pointing their weapons at voters and poll watchers and seized ballot boxes to be carried off or to be spilled and restuffed with false ballots. Screaming in fright, the people fell to the floor and ducked under desks. “Mother of God!” someone shouted as the thugs darted past, wearing T-shirts with the message, “Vote Intelligently.” The gunmen moved quickly, kicking the long day’s labor of marked ballots aside like chaff and moving into the room of Precinct 135 where they found Pedro San Juan, the poll inspector, defiantly hugging the voting box to his chest. The raid, witnessed by a reporter, was duplicated across town at another elementary school, witnesses there said.
Haitian President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier is ousted from power and flees his country, ending 28 years of family rule. President Jean-Claude Duvalier boarded a United States Air Force jet and fled to France before dawn today, ending the 28-year grip of his family on this impoverished Caribbean nation. In a videotaped message broadcast after he had been in the air several hours, Mr. Duvalier said he had stepped down after two months of tumultuous anti-Government protests to spare the nation of six million people a “nightmare of blood.” Moments later, Lieutenant General Henri Namphy, the commander of the armed forces, went on the air to announce that the army had taken over. He said he had acted with Haiti nearly paralyzed and the “specter of civil war” rising. He said the armed forces would govern the country with an interim six-member ruling council that includes two civilians. Mr. Duvalier’s flight came after months of unrest over economic conditions and political repression in this country, the poorest in the Western hemisphere. It also came a week after the White House issued an erroneous announcement that Mr. Duvalier had fled. Mr. Duvalier’s departure, along with his wife, Michele, their children, his mother and about 20 other relatives, was greeted in the capital with a riot of cheers and blaring horns. But the celebration soon turned violent. A supervising doctor at the national university hospital said 20 people had been killed by early afternoon, half of them members of Mr. Duvalier’s special police force, known as the Tontons Macoute. Seventy-five others were reported hurt.
Jamaica had a key role in persuading President Duvalier to flee Haiti, United States and Jamaican officials said. The officials said Jamaica had convinced Mr. Duvalier, who called himself President for Life, that he had to leave for the sake of the people of Haiti and the Caribbean.
The continuing war between Nicaraguan Government forces and Miskito Indian rebels has transformed the once-tranquil Indian village of Layasiksa into a battleground. Craters made by rockets and 500-pound bombs dropped last month pockmark the swampy areas that ring Layasiksa, which is in remote northern Nicaragua. Government troops, accompanied by a dog trained to follow human scents, arrived a few days ago and have camped here. Villagers said they suspected the Government bombing might have been aimed at a group of Indian rebels led by Brooklyn Rivera, the most prominent Miskito leader. Mr. Rivera was said to have passed by here shortly before the bombing.
Former President Jimmy Carter met separately today with leaders of Nicaragua’s Government and with opposition figures here, after having talked in Costa Rica with rebels trying to overthrow the Government. The rebels said Mr. Carter brought their peace proposal to Managua. Mr. Carter met for two hours with Defense Minister Humberto Ortega Saavedra, and with Interior Minister Tomas Borge. He also had lunch with editors of the opposition newspaper, La Prensa, and met with leaders opposition political parties.
President Alan Garcia Perez tonight imposed a state of emergency in Lima and the neighboring port city of Callao, instituted a curfew to curb violence by leftist guerrillas and extended a freeze on the official rate of the national currency through the end of the year. In a televised speech, Mr. Garcia said the armed forces would be in charge of internal security with the power to enforce the emergency decree, which suspends a wide range of constitutional rights. It was the first time since 1978 that the Government had placed this city of five million people under a curfew. Mr. Garcia said the measure was aimed at preserving order amid widening attacks by the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas. Mr. Garcia also froze the official rate of the national currency against the United States dollar at 13.91.
The House Select Committee on Intelligence has written a letter to President Reagan asking him to reconsider a plan to provide secret aid to rebels battling the Marxist Government in Angola, according to sources on Capitol Hill and in intelligence circles. The committee action does not necessarily kill Mr. Reagan’s efforts to help the rebels and their leader, Jonas Savimbi, who was in Washington this week promoting his cause. But the letter makes the task of the President much more difficult.
South Africa’s Foreign Minister has been rebuked by President P. W. Botha for suggesting that this racially divided nation might one day be led by a black President. The unusual public reprimand of Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha came in response to a comment he made to foreign reporters Thursday that “it would possibly become unavoidable that in future you might have black presidents in this country.” Appearing before the dominant white house of South Africa’s three-chamber, racially segregated Parliament, President Botha declared that “any speculation about future presidents is purely hypothetical” and that “no member of the Cabinet has any right to compromise the party in such a way.” The development came amid renewed rumors about the destiny of Nelson Mandela, the imprisoned black nationalist leader. The South African Press Association reported that an unidentified official at the Zambian headquarters of the African National Congress, the leading black South African opposition group, said the organization’s leaders there were expecting Mr. Mandela to be released to them this weekend. There was, however, no other indication that Mr. Mandela was about to be set free.
A panel of three Federal judges ruled unanimously today that a key provision of a new budget-balancing law was unconstitutional because it violated the principle requiring separation of powers among the branches of Government. The Court ruled that Congress could delegate authority over the budget to the President or people answerable to him but could not shift it to the Comptroller General of the United States or other people removable by Congress itself through legislation. The ruling now goes to the Supreme Court for a final determination of new law’s constitutionality. The decision by the Federal District Court here has broad legal, political and economic significance. The statute in question was widely regarded as the most important step taken by Congress in many years to reduce the budget deficit.
The Federal court decision today striking down automatic spending cuts could make President Reagan less willing to negotiate with Congress over taxes and spending, undermining the chances for major deficit reduction this year, according to members of Congress. Several House and Senate leaders, putting the best face on an unwelcome decision, argued that even if it was upheld by the Supreme Court, political pressure alone could force Congress to shrink the Federal budget deficit. But some leaders said that political pressure might not be enough to force Congress and the White House to compromise without the threat of automatic spending cuts as an unpalatable alternative to inaction. “It takes the guts out of the law,” said Representative Leon E. Panetta, Democrat of California who helped shape the bill in the House. “Once you remove the wall, the automatic cuts, you increase the President’s leverage to go after Congress. The Congress is going to scramble the same way it did last year to avoid tough choices.”
President Reagan greets the 1986 class of the U.S. Senate Youth Program.
President Reagan participates in a ceremony to present the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service to retired Chief Usher, Rex W. Scouten.
President Reagan pledged today that civilian teachers would still serve as astronauts despite the explosion on the space shuttle Challenger that killed Christa McAuliffe. Speaking to high school students in suburban Virginia, Mr. Reagan also said his plan for a defensive shield against missiles “is advancing far more rapidly than we even dared hope three years ago.” “I promise you, we will do everything within my power to move forward with research and testing of a high-tech, nonnuclear defensive system, so that the world you raise your children in will be safe and secure from fear,” Mr. Reagan told the enthusiastic students in Thomas Jefferson High School in Annandale, Virginia.
Recovery forces have hauled in 12 tons of the space shuttle Challenger’s wreckage and located many other underwater fragments, according to the Coast Guard, but the space agency has repeatedly refused to describe the findings and their importance to the investigation into the explosion. The inventory of collected or located debris may include chunks of the fuel tank, sections of the two booster rockets, parts of the shuttle cabin, an astronaut’s helmet, the schoolteacher’s lesson materials and other “personal effects,” or remains of the astronauts, according to an accumulation of evidence presented in unofficial photographs and news reports. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, citing restrictions on the release of information imposed by the investigatory teams, has declined to comment on these reports or on any results of the salvage operation. The recovered materials are being laid out on the floor of a warehouse here like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. No visitors are permitted in the area.
A Federal jury today found a retired Central Intelligence Agency analyst guilty on charges of spying for the Chinese for more than 30 years. The jury deliberated for about three and a half hours before returning a verdict of guilty on all 17 counts of the indictment. The former analyst, Larry Wu-Tai Chin, showed no emotion as he stood, hands clasped, while the verdict was read. His wife, Cathy Chin, who sat in the front row with their children throughout the trial, stayed in the courtroom after the jury had been dismissed and Judge Robert W. Merhige Jr. had slammed down his gavel for the last time. She wept and had to be helped from the building by her family. Mr. Chin was convicted of espionage, conspiracy, unauthorized disclosure of classified information and a variety of tax charges. The espionage and conspiracy counts carry life sentences and the remaining 15 counts a total of 83 years. Mr. Chin also faces fines totalling more than $3.3 million. No date was set for the sentencing. Jacob Stein, Mr. Chin’s lawyer, said he planned to appeal the conviction. He said the appeal would be based in part on Judge Merhige’s refusal to tell the jury to take account of the prosecution’s failure to call as a witness the unknown source whose tip began the case.
General Dynamics’ eligibility to bid for Government contracts was restored by the Navy. The Navy lifted its suspension of the company’s eligibility which it imposed Dec. 3, a day after General Dynamics and four former or current executives were indicted on Federal fraud charges. The Navy said the company had taken major steps to correct its problems and granted it immunity from further suspensions as a consequence of other indictments that might result from the three grand jury investigations or 10 to 15 other investigations now under way.
The lowest jobless rate in nearly six years was reported by the Department of Labor. It said a surge in job growth helped drive the unemployment rate down two-tenths of a point in January to 6.6 percent. A gain of 566,000 payroll jobs far exceeded expectations even after allowing for unseasonably mild weather and for aberrations related to the Christmas shopping season. The advance was the third-biggest since World War II. Analysts described the results, which also showed a drop of two-tenths of a point in the civilian jobless rate, to 6.7 percent, as highly encouraging, and some were prompted to raise their estimates of first-quarter economic growth.
A rally for strikers at a meat processing plant in Austin, Minnesota drew only 120 people today, a quarter of the turnout a week ago, and the authorities began withdrawing some National Guard troops from the meatpacking plant. The first 200 of the 800 guardsmen left today, said Captain Lucy Kender, a Guard spokesman in St. Paul. Fifteen hundred members of Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union have been on strike since August 17 at Geo. A. Hormel & Company. Hormel reopened the plant with replacement workers January 13. About 120 people gathered before dawn today at two police checkpoints. There were no arrests. A similar rally last week brought out 400 to 500 people.
Federal District Judge Walter L. Nixon today finished testifying in his trial on charges of influence peddling and perjury by denying that he used his office for financial benefit. The Government charges that Judge Nixon, chief judge for the Southern District of Mississippi, accepted $60,000 in oil and gas interests from a wealthy businessman, Wiley Fairchild, in exchange for his help in trying to get state drug charges dropped against Mr. Fairchild’s son, Drew. After Judge Nixon was cross-examined by the prosecution, the defense rested in the three-week-old trial. Closing arguments are scheduled for Saturday, with the case expected to go to the jury later in the day.
The City Council today rescinded a measure declaring Los Angeles a sanctuary for political refugees after opponents argued that it was an invitation to illegal aliens to break the law. But the Council unanimously approved a compromise measure that reaffirms the city’s policy of not reporting to the Immigration and Naturalization Service the legal status of crime victims, witnesses or those receiving certain social services. “There’s no justification for us to unilaterally violate Federal law,” said City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who led the move to repeal the measure. Councilman Mike Woo, who wrote the original resolution, said he was willing to compromise to avoid a backlash of anti-immigrant sentiment.
San Diego’s acting mayor, who took over because his predecessor was convicted of a felony, has decided to quit the February 25 mayoral primary because of a legal problem of his own. Deputy Mayor Ed Struiksma made the announcement at a news conference Thursday after learning that the District Attorney’s office planned to investigate his expenses for a 1984 city-paid trip to New York and Boston. He became Acting Mayor when his predecessor, Roger Hedgecock, resigned in December after being convicted of conspiracy and perjury. The District Attorney’s office announced Thursday that it would investigate $2,386 for meals, lodging and travel on the seven-day trip that Mr. Struiksma had billed to the city.
Lady Bird Johnson is in the hospital because of fatigue and pain from an injured left knee, her press secretary said today. “She had a good night,” said Betty Tilson, the press secretary, who said the former First Lady would remain hospitalized until at least Sunday. Mrs. Johnson, 73 years old, entered St. David’s Community Hospital late Wednesday for observation after she fainted while attending a funeral. She also was suffering from an injury to her left knee received in a fall Tuesday evening. She suffered a bruise and a possible hairline fracture, according to a statement from her office at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Texas.
Workers unearthed a third human skeleton today at a Colorado ranch whose former owner is charged with murdering a truck driver, and investigators said they are looking for up to six more bodies. Two bodies were dug up earlier this week on the 2,880-acre ranch 20 miles from the Kansas border. The ranch was once owned by Thomas McCormick, 52 years old, who is charged with murdering a truck driver who disappeared in 1983. The trucker’s body was exhumed last week from a field 100 miles west of Stratton after the authorities were led there by Mr. McCormick’s son, Michael. The younger McCormick, 29, who is being held on stolen vehicle charges, told the investigators where to dig at the ranch, officials said.
A jury awarded $1 million today to an 11-year-old Abbeville, Louisiana boy who was molested by a priest who is now in prison for sexually abusing three dozen boys. The boy’s parents, Glenn and Faye Gastal, refused out-of-court settlements and sought $12 million in their lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana. The diocese has settled 13 families’ lawsuits out of court for a reported $5.5 million. The priest, the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The Woody Allen film “Hannah and Her Sisters” starring Mia Farrow, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest and an ensemble cast is released in the United States.
The U.S. female Figure Skating championship is won by Debi Thomas.
Stocks moved deeper into record territory yesterday, in a session marked by abrupt swings in prices. “It was a wild day,” said Guy Cappucci, a trader with Morgan Stanley & Company. “You had Gramm-Rudman. You had buy and sell programs. Anything that could have happened, did.” The Dow Jones industrial average, which had been down 18 points around midday — and up 18 during the afternoon — ended with a 12.73-point gain. It closed at a record 1,613.42, having gained 42.43 points for the week.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1613.42 (+12.73)
Born:
Stephen Colletti, American actor (“One Tree Hill”; “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County”), in Newport Beach, California.
Josh Collmenter, MLB pitcher (Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Braves), in Homer, Michigan.
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