Administration officials said today that President Reagan planned to send a letter to Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, outlining proposals dealing with strategic arms, medium-range missiles, chemical weapons, troop levels in Europe and other key arms issues. “It will be an attempt to respond to all of Gorbachev’s arms control proposals,” said an Administration official, who described the response as “very complex and detailed.” Government officials said the proposals, which were reportedly still being shaped at the White House today, contain modifications of previous United States proposals on medium-range missiles, as well as touching on the talks on intercontinental-range weapons and space-based defenses. Medium-Range Arms Emphasis The main thrust of the proposals, officials said, is medium-range forces. Mr. Reagan, in a letter expected to be sent over the weekend, is said to be planning to stress that talks on intermediate-range nuclear weapons are a priority, separate from talks on strategic and space-based weapons.
The Reagan letter, a response to one from Mr. Gorbachev, is part of an exchange designed to set the agenda for talks between the two men at their next meeting, expected this summer or early in the fall. United States officials have said talks on medium-range weapons are perhaps the most promising area of progress in the current round of Geneva arms negotiations. In a message conveyed during Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s recent visit to Moscow, Mr. Gorbachev appeared to drop the Russian insistence that negotiations on medium-range weapons be linked to the American “Star Wars” program to build a space-based missile defense. In his letter, Mr. Reagan will be replying to Mr. Gorbachev’s recent proposal that all nuclear weapons be eliminated by the year 2000. Mr. Gorbachev’s proposal, made January 15, was the latest in a series of offers and counteroffers from both sides in the intermittent negotiations by the United States and Soviet Union to reduce nuclear arsenals. Administration officials said Mr. Reagan planned to welcome the Soviet leader’s proposal and to issue an “across the board” series of options. These would not be limited to medium-range weapons but would also include other issues raised by Mr. Gorbachev, like the “Star Wars” program.
To an extent no one can remember, the Soviet press has opened up to subjects and themes that in the past were handled most circumspectly, if at all. Censorship, privilege, words like Stalinism and other taboo subjects have broken into print and onto screens and stages, and exposes of corruption, shortages and economic problems appear virtually daily in the press. It is a change that became evident after Mikhail S. Gorbachev came to office last March and called for more “glasnost,” or openness, in covering domestic affairs, especially in support of his economic program and the campaign against corruption. Calls for more “glasnost” had been issued in the past, too, and editors reacted cautiously at first. But since the New Year, with the approach of the of the party congress, which opens next Tuesday, the press has become bolder, and the arts have begun to follow suit. The “glasnost,” to be sure, is limited. The more critical articles tend to appear in the major national newspapers while local papers, without direct guidance, do not seem to know how to handle the novel approach to journalism. Coverage of international affairs has not changed. If anything, the closer scrutiny of the flaws of Soviet society is being balanced by even more newspaper articles saying that conditions in the West are even worse.
Assailants in Rome shot and wounded an aide to Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, and one of the attackers, identified as a member of the Red Brigades, was slain by the official’s bodyguard. Three other people, a woman and two men, escaped, the police said. The wounded official was Antonio Da Empoli, chief of Mr. Craxi’s office of Economic and Social Affairs. The police said the terrorists had left a leaflet at the scene of the attack taking responsibility in the name of the Union of Fighting Communists. The police said they believed that the group involved was a splinter group of the Red Brigades that was organized in Paris. They said it appeared to have links to the French terrorist group Direct Action.
The highest Polish appellate court today reduced the prison terms of two leading Solidarity activists, who were sentenced in Gdansk last June for fomenting unrest, but it left unchanged the term given to a third man in the same case. The three-judge panel rejected arguments by defense lawyers that the trial judge had made at least 25 reversible errors in trying the three men, Adam Michnik, Bogdan Lis and Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, for their roles in planning a 15-minute general strike, which was ultimately called off. But the judges accepted lawyers’ assertions that although both Mr. Michnik and Mr. Lis had been confined for several years in the recent past, they were detainees during martial law and had never been convicted. Consequently, they could not be considered repeat offenders.
A man identified as a former American naval commander and intelligence worker was charged today with espionage. The accused man, John Bothwell, 59 years old, was arraigned on a charge of violating the Official Secrets Act. He was accused of preparing to divulge information that could have been “useful to an enemy.” Mr. Bothwell was not required to enter a plea today. The court ordered him held without bail for at least a week. Press Association, Britain’s domestic news agency, reported without citing sources that Mr. Bothwell had given the police a long statement in which he was said to have admitted a 10-year relationship with the Soviet Union and a role as a middleman in trade deals between the Soviet Union and South Africa. According to court records, Mr. Bothwell left the Navy in the mid-1960’s and then worked in a United States intelligence agency for 10 years.
The head of the East German Parliament said today that Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the Communist Party, would like to visit West Germany later this year, after a party congress in April. The comments by the official, Horst Sindermann, were the strongest indication to date that the milestone Honecker visit, called off in September 1984 because of heavy Soviet pressure, would take place this year. There has been speculation that the East German leader, 73 years old, might come to West Germany in time to open a June exhibit in Essen on Dresden’s baroque art.
When Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen goes to New York next week, he may want to consult with his more experienced colleague, Edward I. Koch, on the art of damage control in corruption scandals. Mr. Diepgen is to visit Washington and New York to promote West Berlin as an exciting city for tourists and investors. The Mayor, 45 years old, will be leaving behind the most explosive scandal in West Berlin’s postwar history — a tale of bribery, blackmail, bordellos and buildings devastated by mysterious fires, or what is euphemistically known here as “warm depreciations.” For the blond, boyish-looking Mr. Diepgen, the uncovering of what West German journalists are calling “the Berlin sump” has meant a tumble from grace. Just a year ago — taking over from Richard von Weizsacker, who had moved on to become West Germany’s President — Mr. Diepgen led his Christian Democratic Party to an election triumph on the slogan “Berlin Is Back.”
The French Government has released two members of the Abu Nidal terrorist group after they had served half their prison terms for the assassination of a Palestine Liberation Organization leader in France and another Palestinian in 1978, Interior Ministry sources confirmed today. The Government declined to explain why it had released the two Palestinian terrorists, Assad Kayed and Husni Hatem.
Israeli troops and tanks stormed the village of Kafr Dunin in southern Lebanon today on the fifth day of Israel’s huge sweep to find two captured soldiers, United Nations officials said. The Israelis opened up with tank and machine-gun fire and swept into the Shiite Muslim village, which is five miles north of the security belt Israel occupies on the border and 13 miles from the actual frontier. Timur Goksel, spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, Unifil, said a Ghanaian soldier had been wounded. Other casualties were not known. Kafr Dunin is headquarters of the Ghanaian battalion attached to the nine-nation United Nations force.
Iran’s recent offensive and its continued occupation of a strategic piece of Iraqi territory has stunned many Arab nations and revived fears about the vulnerability of both Iraq and its Persian Gulf neighbors, according to Arab officials meeting here. The Iranian military drive in which troops seized the Fao Peninsula had been predicted for weeks by Iran’s religious leadership. But Arab officials have expressed dismay that the well-equipped Iraqi military has been so far ineffective in expelling the Iranian invaders, and they say they fear the continued presence of Iranians on Arab soil could instigate incidents of sabotage by Islamic fundamentalists in their countries. “It’s different this time,” said Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Taher Nashat al-Masri. “The gulf countries are extremely worried, because although Iraq is doing well and will continue to do well, there is always the possibility of making a mistake.”
South Korean police lifted house arrests imposed a day earlier on about 200 opposition politicians to prevent their attending a meeting to push for direct presidential elections. Police also lifted their one-day blockade of the headquarters of the main opposition party, where the meeting was to have been held. Dissident Kim Young Sam was among those allowed to leave their homes, but fellow dissident Kim Dae Jung remained under house arrest for the ninth day. Critics of the government vowed to continue campaigning for election reform.
President Marcos defended himself against growing outside pressure and called his foreign critics ‘modern-day imperialists.” He said Filipinos would not submit to dictates from abroad. His remarks were made as criticism of the recent election in the Philippines increased in the United States and Europe, and as President Reagan’s special envoy, Philip C. Habib, prepared to leave Manila today after a week’s stay. Mr. Habib met today for the second time with Mr. Marcos’s challenger for the presidency, Corazon C. Aquino, and a United States Embassy spokesman said it was possible he would see Mr. Marcos again before leaving.
A U.S. adviser’s report buttressed the American observer team’s contention that the Philippines election was rigged by the Marcos Government. Allen Weinstein, a Boston University professor, who was the political adviser to the American delegation in Manila made public a wealth of detail that supported the team’s contention that President Marcos was re-elected through “systematic disenfranchisement” of millions of voters for the challenger, Corazon C. Aquino. In a news conference on Capitol Hill, Allen Weinstein, a Boston University professor, who was the political adviser to the official observer group, said the delegation, in reporting to the White House on Thursday night and to Senator Richard G. Lugar, the group’s chairman, had reached these conclusions, based on a post-election follow-up trip: “We conclude that from pre-election preparations to election day, and from the vote-counting that followed, that the Government of the Philippines, the K.B.L. and many officials of both, sought through manipulation of the electoral process, intimidation and fraud, to obtain the re-election of Ferdinand Marcos. “In the process, there occurred both by design and administrative disorganization, the systematic disenfranchisement of millions of previously registered Filipino voters.” The K.B.L. is Mr. Marcos’s party. Mr. Weinstein said that in talks in recent days in Manila, even a senior Marcos aide acknowledged that serious disenfranchisement occurred. That official, he said, placed the number “at only one million,” but the American observers were disposed, he indicated, to accept the figure cited by the citizens’ observer group, known as NAMFREL, which put the number at 3.3 million.
President Miguel de la Madrid called tonight for the international financial community to alter the terms of Mexico’s $97 billion foreign debt so that the cost of debt service is based on Mexico’s ability to pay. Mr. de la Madrid did not say by how much Mexico’s debt service should be reduced. And he stopped well short of specifically declaring a cap on the amount of debt service Mexico can pay, as Peru did last year when it limited its payment to 10 percent of foreign earnings. Instead, he spoke of the vicious circle in which Mexico has found itself as oil prices dropped, causing the country to fall deeper into debt and then having to borrow more money to service its debt.
The Haitian Government will take legal steps try to freeze foreign assets of former President Jean-Claude Duvalier and his family, who fled the country two weeks ago, the new Finance Minister said today. The official, Marcel Leger, said the Government did not know the size of the fortune the Duvalier family had amassed in almost three decades of rule. Diplomats and business officials here have estimated the family fortune at from $200 million to $500 million. It is often reported to include deposits in foreign banks as well as real estate in the United States, France, Monaco and Mexico.
Several thousand workers marched through downtown San Salvador this morning in the largest such protest to date against the economic policies of President Jose Napoleon Duarte. It was difficult to judge the number of demonstrators since the march wound over several city blocks, but estimates ranged from 15,000 to as high as 50,000. The marchers were protesting the Government’s recent economic measures, which included a devaluation. The most frequently heard protest was that the prices of basic goods have risen too high.
President Daniel Ortega Saavedra said today that Nicaragua was ready to negotiate security concerns with the United States, but he repeated that the governing Sandinista Front would not discuss domestic policy changes. “It would not occur to us to ask for internal changes in the United States,” Mr. Ortega said, “even though we may not be in agreement with many aspects of the democracy, or so-called democracy, that exists there.”
Bombs exploded at the United States Embassy and at the missions of at least four other foreign nations in Lima, Peru late tonight, but there were no immediate reports of injuries, news reports said. Journalists from the daily newspaper El Comercio reported blasts at the embassies of the United States, West Germany, Spain, China and India. They quoted witnesses as saying the bombers had thrown dynamite at their targets from speeding cars. Other news organizations reported bombings at the Argentine and British embassies and the Lima bureau of the official Chinese news agency. No injuries were reported in any of the attacks, and there was no immediate indication of the extent of damage. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. El Comercio reporters said police arrested one suspect, and that he had been turned over to a police anti-terrorist squad.
South African blacks booed Bishop Desmond M. Tutu after he told them that a meeting with the Government had produced no concessions on their grievances. “We are going to be rulers in this land,” the black Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg and Nobel Peace Prize laureate told a sullen audience of about 40,000 people at the sports stadium in the black township of Alexandra. “When? When? When?” they shouted. At least 23 people have been reported killed in Alexandra in the last week.
NASA’s Administrator will resign soon and is expected to be replaced by someone outside the space agency, Reagan Administration officials said. High officials from both the White House and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration confirmed that the Administrator, James M. Beggs, who is on leave, would be departing shortly, but the date was uncertain. Mr. Beggs is known to have strongly urged the White House not to appoint the agency’s Acting Administrator, Dr. William R. Graham, as his successor. The management of NASA has been under relentless pressure since an explosion destroyed the shuttle Challenger on January 28, killing the seven crew members. The process that led to the decision to launch has been closely scrutinized, particularly with an eye to whether the agency had pressured Morton Thiokol Inc., manufacturer of the booster rockets suspected as the possible cause of the disaster, to approve the launching.
Three members of the Presidential commission investigating the space shuttle explosion said today they could find no immediate evidence that the space agency had pressured the manufacturers of the Challenger’s solid-fuel booster rockets to approve the Jan. 28 launching. The commission members, who were not speaking for the entire panel, made their remarks at a brief news conference after meeting for about nine hours with engineers and officials at Morton Thiokol Inc.’s rocket manufacturing plant here. “So far it looks like a professional engineers’ disagreement,” said David C. Acheson, a Washington lawyer who served as a principal spokesman for the visiting commission members. The others were Robert W. Rummel, an aerospace consultant and former Trans World Airlines executive, and Dr. Eugene E. Covert, a professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Shortly after the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, a team of military pathologists and forensic experts was flown here to help in the identification of any human remains that might be recovered, the space agency said today. But the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the experts from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology flew back to Washington after spending several days here preparing for the investigation. “If we have need of their services, I will call them and they will respond,” said Capt. Joseph P. Kerwin of the Navy, a former astronaut who is director of Space and Life Sciences at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. More than three weeks after the shuttle was destroyed in a fireball above the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven crew members, it is still unclear what, if any, human remains have been recovered as a result of an extensive sea search off the Florida coast.
President Reagan told House Republicans today that he would make a major television speech about military matters next week, and the Republican Congressmen said later that he would also use the speech to push for new military aid for the rebels fighting the Nicaraguan Government. The President faces stiff resistance from Republicans and Democrats in Congress on his proposal for an 8 percent increase in the miliary budget on top of an increase to make up for inflation.
President Reagan participates in a meeting with the House Republican Congress to discuss the legislative and political agenda for the second session of the 99th Congress.
The Senate Armed Services Committee has tentatively agreed to a measure that would revamp the organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congressional sources said today. The changes, which were given preliminary approval by the panel on Thursday, would give the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs broad authority over the four other members who represent the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines Corps. In addition, the sources said, the changes would allow the Chairman to make his own recommendations to the President on military questions. Democrats and Republicans in Congress have become increasingly critical of the current system, under which the Joint Chiefs act as a group and try to reach consensus in presenting their views to the President. The critics have argued that the current arrangement has led to a lack of unity in United States military forces, with representatives from the various services caught up in a fierce competition for money and missions. Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger has opposed changes in the organization of the Joint Chiefs, arguing that the current system is working satisfactorily and that at the very least Congress should hold off on legislation until the President’s Commission on Defense Management completes its work in June 1986.
Larry Wu-Tai Chin, the retired analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency convicted of spying for the Chinese for 30 years, was found dead this morning in his jail cell, apparently a suicide, the authorities said. Stephan Kaftan, superintendent of the Prince William-Manassas Regional Adult Detention Center in suburban Virginia, said Mr. Chin appeared to have suffocated himself with a brown plastic trash bag. It was sealed with shoe laces taken from a pair of high-top sneakers that Mr. Chin kept in his cell. Two weeks ago a jury found the 63-year-old Mr. Chin guilty on multiple charges of espionage and tax violations. He had faced two life terms in prison and fines totaling $3.3 million at his sentencing, which was scheduled for March 17.
AIDS patient Ryan White returned briefly to classes at Western Middle School. An Indiana boy went to school for the first time since doctors discovered 15 months ago that he has AIDS. But 43 percent of his classmates stayed home, and after school was over a judge barred Ryan from going back Monday. School officials said the absentee rate in the last two weeks has ranged from 10 percent to 15 percent. Until today Ryan, a 14-year-old who also has hemophilia, had been only a voice to his seventh-grade classmates. Ryan White, 14 years old, who also has hemophilia, had been following his seventh-grade classes over a telephone hookup since September. Last July local school officials rejected Ryan’s request to return to school, and they relented last week only after the local health authorities said he posed no threat to the other pupils. But a group of parents took the case to Howard County Circuit Court in nearby Kokomo, where Judge R. Alan Brubaker ruled this afternoon that permitting Ryan to attend classes violated a 1949 Indiana law dealing with communicable diseases. Judge Brubaker barred Ryan from school until he can hold a hearing to determine whether the statute covers AIDS.
The Food and Drug Administration today challenged a pharmaceutical company’s report that it had had some success treating AIDS with a drug. Last week the company, Newport Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Newport Beach, California, said data showed that its experimental drug, isoprinosine, “demonstrated a restoration” toward normal functioning of the immune system, which is ravaged by the incurable disease, acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The company added that the data collected through August “demonstrated a 50 percent reduction in the rate of progress of the infected patients to developing AIDS.” The company’s president, Dr. Alvin Glasky, denied any improper actions. “We do not believe we have made any public misstatements,” he said in a telephone interview. The F.D.A. said that data submitted by Newport did not support its assertions of success, that the number of patients used was inadequate to establish a statistically valid sample and that the study had not been conducted in a scientifically controlled manner.
The son of Geraldine A. Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate and a former Congresswoman from Queens, has been arrested on a cocaine charge in Vermont, a county prosecutor said today. Mrs. Ferraro’s son, John A. Zaccaro Jr., was arrested Thursday night by the local and state police and arraigned today in Vermont District Court for Addison County. Mr. Zaccaro, a 22-year-old senior at Middlebury College, pleaded not guilty to possession of a regulated drug before Judge Frank Mahady and was released on his own recognizance. John Quinn, deputy state’s attorney for Addison County, said the police found six to eight grams of cocaine and $2,000 in Mr. Zaccaro’s car and off-campus apartment after he bought cocaine from an undercover officer. —- John A. Zaccaro, the suspect’s father, told reporters last night outside the family’s home in the Forest Hills section of Queens that he had spoken by telephone with his son but had not been told details of the case and could not comment on it. The elder Mr. Zaccaro, expressing support for his son, said he had tried to fly to Vermont to be with but the flight was canceled. Mrs. Ferraro was in Hawaii, her husband said.
About 3,700 union members walked off the job today at a General Electric Company aircraft engine plant to protest the suspension of a shop steward. Talks were scheduled Monday between General Electric and Local 201 of the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Technical, Salaried and Machine Workers, both sides said. The walkout halted engine production at the plant in this suburb of Boston, said Bill Kennedy, a spokesman for the company. About 7,500 of the 12,000 workers at the plant are represented by the union, he added. Kevin Mahar, president of the local, said the union had a backlog of hundreds of grievances that had not been addressed by management, but added that the suspension of Richard O’Day, the shop steward, was the grievance that caused the walkout.
A 6-year-old girl died and a 3-year-old boy stopped breathing briefly after a nurse mistakenly gave them morphine rather than Demerol at a health clinic in Dallas last month, and a lawyer for the girl’s relatives questioned today whether the children needed any painkiller. Both children had cuts on the head. Louis Francis, a lawyer representing the mother and grandmother of Katoya Woods, who died after being given the morphine, said “The only reason her grandmother took her to the clinic was because the school required a doctor’s note saying she was O.K. before she could be readmitted to class.” Dr. James G. Bowerman, medical director of Cigna Healthplan in Dallas, called it a “tragic human error.”
Scientists in Boston and Peking chatted with one another today over a satellite hookup to demonstrate the potential of a new $22.9 million center for medical communications. In what was believed to be the first live two-way satellite news conference between China and the United States, six American scientists discussed health communications technology with six researchers from Peking Medical University, according to a spokesman for Tufts University. The spokesman, Karen Bailey, said the teleconference was to show the capabilities of the university’s Arthur M. Sackler Center for Health Communications at its dedication. Such linkups would not be a regular function of the center, she added.
Maryland Governor Harry Hughes of Maryland yesterday ordered stores in the state to remove Gerber strained peaches from their shelves because glass shards had been found in two opened jars of the baby food, but the Food and Drug Administration said it had tested 6,000 unopened jars and found no glass. Gerber officials reacted angrily to Mr. Hughes’s order, calling it unwarranted and irresponsible. Gerber said it would take legal action to combat the Governor’s order. In the last week consumers in Florida, New York, Maryland, Georgia, Tennessee, Michigan, Rhode Island, Washington and Arizona have reported finding glass in Gerber baby foods.
A cloud of chlorine gas spewed from a ruptured line at a chemical plant today and injured at least 76 people, including three dozen children sickened by vapors that seeped into an elementary school. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Departent said workers at a Purex Corporation plant in South Gate, a suburb seven miles south of downtown Los Angeles, accidentally cut the line and caused the leak Two Purex workers were in serious condition at a hospital in Los Angeles with respiratory problems from the vapors, which can be fatal in concentrated doses, officials said.
A California state judge today ruled that Elizabeth Bouvia, paralyzed from birth by cerebral palsy, must be fed by force because she was secretly trying to commit suicide. Mrs. Bouvia, 28 years old, had sought an injunction to stop the High Desert Hospital in Lancaster from using a tube in her nose to supply her with nutrients. She maintained through her lawyer that she was not trying to starve herself, as she had sought to do at a hospital in Riverside in 1983, but that she was legally entitled to choose her own medical treatment.
A burst river levee in California flooded many homes. Thousands of people crowded emergency shelters near Sacramento today after a levee holding back the Yuba River ruptured suddenly Thursday night and forced 21,000 residents from their homes. Officials could not say when they might be able to return. Rescue teams continued to lift stranded residents to safety today. Officials said it appeared that no lives were lost after the levee collapsed and sent about 60,000 cubic feet of water a second into the towns of Linda, Olivehurst and Rio Oso, all about 30 miles north of here. The area had been inundated by torrential rains for about a week.
Spring baseball training began in Florida and Arizona as the pitchers and catchers reported to their teams. In Florida, New York’s finest — the Yankees in Fort Lauderdale and the Mets in St. Petersburg — gathered to begin the month and a half warming-up ritual.
Rollie Fingers loses a chance to continue his career with the Cincinnati Reds when he refuses to shave his trademark handlebar mustache to comply with the club’s policy. Says Fingers: “I’m not about to shave it off just to play baseball.”
Wall Street wrapped up another impressive week with a big rally that put the Dow Jones industrial average near the 1,700 mark. The Dow, which tracks the movement of 30 blue-chip stocks, rose 24.89 points yesterday, to a record 1,697.71. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange was extremely active. “Somehow it seems too easy,” Laszlo Birinyi of Salomon Brothers said, in commenting on the continued rally. “Everyone keeps waiting for it to come down. If it doesn’t come down, they start running after it.”
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1697.71 (+24.89)
Born:
Charlotte Church, Welsh singer-songwriter (“Just Wave Hello”), in Llandaff, Wales, United Kingdom.
Prince Amedeo of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este, in Brussels, Belgium.
Ronald Talley, NFL defensive end (Arizona Cardinals), in Detroit, Michigan.
Clint Sintim, NFL linebacker (New York Giants), in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Dane Byers, Canadian NHL left wing (New York Rangers, Columbus Blue Jackets), in Nipawin, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Died:
Helen Hooven Santmyer, 90, American writer (“…And Ladies of the Club”).
History Diaries 