The Reagan Administration, in a new policy declaration on combating terrorism, will endorse only the most cautious use of force in retaliation against terrorist acts, Administration officials said today. In a report to be issued Thursday, the Administration will state that “a judicious employment of force” may be required to deter terrorist attacks, an Administration official said, but will rule out random acts of retaliation against states harboring terrorists. Several officials said a report by Vice President Bush’s Task Force on Combating Terrorism more or less keeps to the current policy lines, which have been marked by disagreements within the Administration on how to respond to specific actions. The report, which follows a study over several months, was originally set for release two days ago, but the publicity over developments in the Philippines and President Reagan’s speech on military issues led to the postponement, they said.
France and West Germany announced new steps this weekend aimed at strengthening their defense cooperation at the end of a meeting in Paris between President Francois Mitterrand and Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Under the terms of a new military cooperation pact between the two leaders, France promised to consult West Germany before using its tactical nuclear weapons on German soil in any future battle against Warsaw Pact forces. French and West German commanders will also draw up detailed plans for using France’s new rapid deployment force to defend West Germany against attack. Finally, the pact provides for more joint maneuvers between French and West German forces and for joint training programs for their officers, although France has withdrawn from the integrated command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. West German forces remain under the control of the supreme NATO commander.
The West German Defense Minister urged Western Europe today to develop its own antimissile system independently of the United States’ space-based defense program. The official, Manfred Worner, said at a meeting of national security experts that a separate Western European program was imperative because of potential Soviet advances in short-range missiles. His remarks come at a time when Western Europeans seem to be expressing less skepticism about the United States’ missile defense plans. Senator William S. Cohen, a Maine Republican who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in the conference that Western European doubts “have not disappeared, though they are less intense.”
High police officials said tonight that they lacked firm leads in their hunt for the assassin of Prime Minister Olof Palme. Investigators were said to be working on two hypotheses. One was that Mr. Palme — who was shot twice from behind Friday night as he walked home from a movie with his wife — was the victim of a psychopath. The other was that he had become the target of exile or refugee groups bent on revenge for difficulties with Swedish authorities. “They are breaking into every Croat and Kurdish apartment in Europe,” said a former official with good police contacts. A Croatian terrorist who is in jail for the killing of a Yugoslav diplomat here in the early 1970’s, was recently denied a pardon, and a national police alert early this morning indicated that members of a group seeking independence for the Yugoslav republic of Croatia might be among the suspects in the killing.
Compared with the adulation bestowed on Leonid I. Brezhnev at the last Communist Party congress, in 1981, the name of Mikhail S. Gorbachev is being mentioned as little as possible at the current convention. All through the week, evidently under instruction, speakers have been chary of mentioning the present leader, simply referring to his keynote speech. But Lev A. Kulidzhanov, the film director who heads the Motion Picture Workers Union, apparently found it difficult to break old habits. “I won’t repeat what has been said here about the political report that Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev made,” Mr. Kulidzhanov began. “I wholeheartedly agree with his profound analysis. When Mikhail Sergeyevich finished and stepped from the podium, I felt involuntary regret, if I may say so, that he had finished.” “Thank you, Mikhail Sergeyevich, for your brilliant lesson,” Mr. Kulidzhanov continued, referring to Mr. Gorbachev in Russian fashion by first name and patronymic, turning toward the Soviet leader sitting behind him.
Mr. Gorbachev leaned forward and admonished Mr. Kulidzhanov. “Let’s stop declining Mikhail Sergeyevich,” Mr. Gorbachev said, in a humorous reference to the excessive use of his name, which in Mr. Kulidzhanov’s speech was declined into a variety of Russian grammatical forms. The audience broke into applause and laughter. Mr. Kulidzhanov, picking up the reprimand, rephrased his last comment with new meaning by saying, “This is a lesson we must all learn.” The exchange was singled out for broadcast on the evening television news, underscoring the policy of avoiding yet another personality cult. The trend has been evident since Mr. Gorbachev took office a year ago. He reportedly ordered editors to reduce the use of his name, and his portrait has not appeared in streets.
Soaring global military expenditures since World War II are a major cause of environmental deterioration and economic decline in many countries, according to a new State of the World report by the Worldwatch Institute. The report, which is prepared each year by the Washington-based research group, concluded that the chief threats to national security of industrialized and developing nations alike come less from external military pressures than from deteriorating land and resource bases and from economies burdened with crushing expenditures on arms and armies. For the United States, the Soviet Union and some other industrialized countries, the heavy investment in arms has meant loss of capital for industrial development, weakened competitive positions in international trade and rapidly growing national debt, the report said. For some poor developing countries, it asserted, arms expenditures have come at the expense of saving the land and water resources that support human life.
A spate of anti-Semitic remarks by West German politicians has touched off a national debate in which Chancellor Helmut Kohl has been accused of unwittingly reviving hostile feelings toward Jews. The critics, among the opposition and in such liberal publications as Die Zeit and Der Spiegel, contend that Mr. Kohl’s efforts to “normalize” the country’s relationship to the Nazi past have subtly encouraged people to voice long-suppressed anti-Semitic views. As an example, the critics recall the Chancellor’s 1984 visit to Israel, in which he dwelt on the exculpatory theme that his generation, thanks to “being born late,” was too young to have taken part in Hitler’s crimes. Another aspect, they say, was Mr. Kohl’s insistence that President Reagan hold to his appearance last May at the Bitburg cemetery where 49 soldiers of the Waffen SS are buried among 2,000 others. Many older people, particularly those who fought in World War II, regarded Bitburg as a cleansing event, approaching a pardon. “Last year was obviously the turning point, I think,” said Monika Richarz, an academic authority on West Germany’s Jews, who number 28,000. “There is something called anti-Semitism without Jews. Something is popping up again that has always been there. The taboo has been lifted.”
An elementary school in Bergen has been named after Anne Frank, ending a controversy over how to honor the girl who died in the Bergen-Belsen death camp in 1945. After months of wrangling over whether to name a street in her honor, the City Council chose to name a school after her. A service making the name official was attended Friday by the 260 students, their parents and local leaders. Anne Frank died at age 15 in the camp in March 1945. After her death, she became famous for her diary of the time spent hiding from the Nazis with her family in Amsterdam.
The magistrates prosecuting the Sicilian Mafia in the largest trial of its kind ever conducted believe they have scored two victories recently, victories against myths sometimes more powerful than men. The first was the arrest February 20 of Michele Greco, described as one of the most powerful of all Mafia bosses. Law enforcement officials here said his capture after three years as a fugitive helped dispel an aura of invulnerability that had developed around Mafia chieftains. The other victory came in the form of an unprecedented court ruling that in effect allows the Mafia, as a criminal organization, to be sued for damages by its victims. The court action was seen as a triumph over the myth that Sicilians suffer in silence when the Mafia harms them. Moreover, the decision lent significant support to the prosecution’s case.
Once upon a time there was a King of Italy. But his family is no longer welcome there. In fact, the heir to the throne is begging to come back. Victor Emmanuel, the son of Italy’s last King, Umberto II, has renewed a campaign to be allowed to return to what was once his family’s realm, from which he is now banned under the country’s Constitution.
Five workers were contaminated today in the third radioactive leak in four weeks at Britain’s only nuclear reprocessing plant, the operators said. The company, British Nuclear Fuels, said that “a leak of radioactive material, including plutonium,” occurred at its Sellafield plant on the northwest coast and that initial skin tests showed five workers were affected. The incident occurred two days after a Government-ordered safety inquiry began at the plant, where 13 workers were contaminated in leaks on February 5 and February 18. The leak took place in a building where fuel is made for a prototype fast-breeder reactor in Scotland, a company spokesman said.
A Yugoslavian magistrate has begun pretrial interrogation of Andrija Artukovic, extradited from the United States last month on suspicion of being a Nazi war criminal, a Belgrade newspaper said today. Vecernje Novosti said the questioning, which began Friday in Zagreb, was attended by a prosecuting counsel and two defense lawyers, and was expected to last another two days. Mr. Artukovic, 86 years old, is charged with ordering the death of 231,000 Yugoslavs as Interior Minister of the Nazi-controlled independent state of Croatia in World War II. The paper said that for procedural reasons the trial could not start before March 17. Mr. Artukovic would be tried before Zagreb’s main district court by a five-member panel of judges.
World chess champion Gary Kasparov and his defeated rival, Anatoly Karpov, will hold a rematch in London and Leningrad starting July 28, the International Chess Federation in Lucerne, Switzerland, reported. The first 12 games will be in Britain and the remaining 12 in the Soviet Union, the federation anounced in a statement. With 10 weeks’ play and a week for the switch in venue, the match should continue until October 11 at the latest.
The Palestinian mayor of the West Bank city of Nablus was slain early today by an unidentified gunman, Israel Army Radio reported. Mayor Zafer Masri, considered a pro-Jordanian moderate, was appointed in December to become the first Palestinian to hold the office in four years. The mayor “was shot in the stomach at the city entrance at 8:15 by two assailants. He was taken to Nablus’ Raffidiyeh Hospital, where he died a few minutes later,” an Israeli military administration spokesman said.
Israeli soldiers intercepted a Palestinian guerrilla squad wearing Israeli army-issue fatigues on the Lebanese border and killed two of its members on a chase inside Israel’s buffer zone in southern Lebanon, an army spokesman and Israel radio said. The spokesman said an Israeli soldier was slightly injured in the clash that occurred between the northern settlements of Zarit and Shetula, 11 miles east of the Mediterranean coastline.
Diehard Egyptian security force mutineers remained entrenched at barracks on the outskirts of Cairo, holding out against troops trying to dislodge them. The rebels are in the Heliopolis suburb near Cairo airport, at police barracks. Regular army officers, whose troops encircle the camps, told reporters that there had been no exchange of fire with the rebels. But they said the rebels opened fire on their own officers who were trying to subdue them.
An Iraqi air attack crippled a Liberian-registered oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, a spokesman for the vessel’s operators said in Hong Kong. The attack occurred 60 miles south of Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal, where the ship, the 105,000-ton Energy Courage, was heading. All 24 Korean crew members were unhurt, and the empty ship was being towed to Bahrain, the spokesman said. Meanwhile, Iranian troops in northern Iraq pushed within 13 miles of the provincial capital of Sulaymaniyah, Tehran radio said.
Iranian troops on an offensive into northern Iraq pushed within 13 miles of the provincial capital of Sulaimaniya today, a war communique broadcast by the Teheran radio said. Iranian television Friday showed film of captured Iraqi trenches on a mountain ridge dominating a large valley, and the radio said Iranian troops had a direct line of fire on Chwarta, 16 miles north of Sulaimaniya.
U.S. military teams left Laos and Vietnam with the apparent remains of crewmen of an American plane shot down during the Vietnam War and with information about 49 servicemen still listed as missing in action. The remains, unearthed from a jungle site in Laos where an AC-130 gunship crashed in 1972, were flown to Hawaii where forensic experts will analyze the bone fragments, seeking the victims’ identities. The team sent to Vietnam received new information about 49 MIAs and was told that the remains of some of them have been found and will be repatriated.
Indications of vast Marcos wealth were aboard the two United States Air Force planes that brought former President Marcos and 88 relatives and associates to Hawaii last week, according to United States Government sources. Documents detailed investments worth potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Government of President Corazon C. Aquino said today that it was delaying the release of four Communist guerrilla leaders arrested by the Marcos regime until their cases could be further examined. Among them is Jose Maria Sison, the founder and former head of the Philippine Communist Party. But 441 other prisoners classified as political detainees began to be freed today from 12 detention centers around the country. Officials say that they are hoping to complete the release in a few days, but that heavy paperwork has made the process very slow.
President Reagan, warned by his advisers that the conflict in Nicaragua is entering a decisive period, will begin an all-out drive over the next two weeks for increased help for United States-backed insurgents, senior officials said today. At a special White House meeting today, officials agreed that Mr. Reagan should conduct what they intend as a dramatic meeting Monday in the Oval Office with rebel leaders. Among those attending will be Arturo Cruz, Alfonso Robelo and Adolfo Calero, the exiled leaders of the United Nicaraguan Opposition, a coalition of rebel groups. Other efforts on behalf of the insurgents in the two-week period will include a major address by Secretary of State George P. Shultz, private meetings between Mr. Reagan and members of Congress, and, probably, a nationally televised address by the President.
A year after becoming Brazil’s first civilian ruler in two decades, President Jose Sarney has for the first time seized the political initiative by introducing ing a daring package of economic measures aimed at ending the country’s inflation. Coming at a time of growing dissatisfaction with the Government’s performance, the so-called zero inflation plan decreed Friday is expected to be decisive in determining how long Mr. Sarney will serve in office. Chosen originally to be Vice President, Mr. Sarney took over last March when the President-elect, Tancredo Neves, fell ill and died without being sworn in. Since he and Mr. Neves were picked by an Electoral College, a constituent assembly to be elected this November will fix the date of the next presidential elections.
France has reinforced its military deterrent force in Chad with a battery of U.S.-made Hawk anti-aircraft missiles, launchers and radar equipment, the Defense Ministry reported in Paris. A ministry flown to N’Djamena, the Chadian statement said the equipment was capital, from eastern France aboard C-5 transport planes owned by the United States. About 750 French military personnel, along with jet fighters, were dispatched to Chad last month to act as a deterrent to a renewed push by Libyan-backed rebels.
Joshua Nkomo, the often fiery and ambitious leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, seems a subdued man as he speaks softly of personal hopes for peace in his lifetime in a nation scarred by years of civil unrest. Mr. Nkomo, who for three decades fought white minority rule and believed he would become this country’s leader, said in an interview this week at his modest home here that a lasting peace in a “nonracial, nontribal” country was now his only political ambition. It is a desire that hangs tenuously on unity talks aimed at merging his Zimbabwe African People’s Union with the party of his longstanding political rival, Prime Minister Robert Mugabe. While Western diplomats and Zimbabwean political experts doubt that the now stalled talks will be successful, Mr. Nkomo insists that the discussions have not failed. He said Mr. Mugabe was “studying the minutes” of a meeting in December between the two sides and could “call us at any time” to continue the talks.
Members of the Presidential commission investigating the space shuttle explosion say the exact cause is still a mystery despite extensive public hearings this week that focused on space agency procedures and the debilitating effects of ice and cold on the Challenger and its twin booster rockets. The chief suspect so far, the panel members say, is the failure of a seal between segments of the shuttle’s right-hand booster rocket, which could have allowed flames to escape, touching off the explosion that killed all seven crew members. The mystery is why the seal may have failed catastrophically after 24 successful shuttle flights. Although the cold weather has been clearly implicated, the panel members say, it might not be enough to explain the January 28 disaster.
Other factors to be examined by the commission include the possibility of unusual wear-and-tear on the re-useable boosters, assembly errors, lapses in quality control, design flaws, poor work procedures, manufacturing problems and the possibility that over the years booster joints have been put under additional stress by changes in the design of booster rockets.” What we’ve been investigating so far is NASA management,” said one panel member, who spoke on the condition he not be identified. “And the chairman rendered the verdict. It’s flawed. So now we’re going back to more technical things.” In coming weeks commission members are to fan out across the country in search of all factors linked to the disaster. To help with the inquiry, the commission has hired a dozen aides. “We’re trying to establish with as great a degree of detail as possible what actually happened,” said another panel member, who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity. “But there’s very little doubt, in the general layout, that the seals opened up.”
There was sharp debate in public testimony last week over the possible effects that low temperatures had on the rubbery 12-foot O rings on the booster. The rings were designed to form an air-tight seal between the four large segments of the rockets, but tests have shown their effectiveness can be hindered by cold weather. Engineers from Morton Thiokol Inc., which designs, makes and assembles the booster rockets, said they had voiced strong concern about low temperatures predicted for the morning of the shuttle’s launching. The temperature, at 38 degrees, turned out to be the coldest ever for a shuttle liftoff. In addition, shuttle technicians testified this week that before liftoff, the temperature on the lower part of the right-hand booster rocket, where photographs showed the appearance of a fiery plume after ignition, was 14 degrees colder than a similar area on the left booster. But managers at Morton Thiokol, who overruled the engineers and recommended the launching, repeatedly said this week that preoccupation with low temperatures was wrong because problems with O rings had also occurred on warmer days. In one such case, they noted, the temperature at liftoff had been in the 80’s.
President Reagan makes a radio address to the Nation on national security. President Reagan, hailing a Presidential commission’s recommendations to improve Pentagon management, said today he would ask Congress to stop “scrutinizing every paper clip, bolt and bullet” in the military budget. Mr. Reagan, speaking from the Presidential retreat at Camp David in Maryland, devoted his weekly radio address to the commission report delivered to him Friday. He said much of the waste in military spending was attributable to the way Congress appropriated the money. “The vote delays on the MX missile and the suspension of the B-1 bomber cost this country billions of dollars — dollars that were lost forever as those systems that were set back had to be reprogrammed at higher cost,” the President said.
The President and First Lady watch the movie “Iron Eagle” together.
Former President Jimmy Carter accused President Reagan today of “habitually” misstating the record of United States military modernization programs and of following an agenda for national security that had little chance of success. Apparently stung by Mr. Reagan’s speech Wednesday on military spending, Mr. Carter said the President was persisting in a pattern of statements “he knows are not true and which he personally promised me not to repeat.” Mr. Carter’s criticism of Mr. Reagan was the harshest he has made publicly since leaving office. Informed of Mr. Carter’s remarks, a White House spokesman, Ben F. Jarratt, said there would be no response. Mr. Reagan had said that before he took office there was a decade of neglect in military affairs and that his program represented “the first significant improvement” in nuclear deterrence in 20 years.
Four months after a Soviet seaman jumped into the Mississippi River and said he wanted to defect, only to be sent home after apparently changing his mind, 60 senators want to reopen the case amid allegations that Soviet officials switched seamen. Members of Congress and others are saying the man who jumped overboard near New Orleans on Oct. 24 may not have been the man who later told American officials he wanted to return to the Soviet Union. State Department officials say they are certain there was no switch. And Boris Malakhov, a spokesman for the Soviet Embassy in Washington, said, “It’s crazy to think it was not Miroslav Medved who was interviewed.” But several pieces of evidence support the possibility of a switch, at least raising questions about the case of Mr. Medved, whose attempted defection touched off a weekend crisis in Soviet-American relations two weeks before the Geneva summit.
Reagan Administration officials have been developing a proposal that would, for the first time, limit the total value of assistance low-income people could receive from all Federal benefit programs. The limit would be set at roughly the poverty level, now $10,990 for a family of four, Administration officials said. The proposal is being prepared for President Reagan’s Domestic Policy Council. The council, composed of eight Cabinet officers, is conducting a comprehensive review of public assistance and social welfare programs. Mr. Reagan announced the study in his State of the Union Message last month, saying he wanted to find new ways to help poor people “escape the spider’s web of dependency” programs.
The Drug Enforcement Administration said that half the cocaine seized in Florida by the end of 1985 contained a cancer-causing chemical, and officials warned that more than half the cocaine now on the streets nationwide is contaminated with the carcinogen. DEA Administrator John C. Lawn called the situation “extremely dangerous,” although he said the extent of the health threat will not be known until an investigation is completed by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Lawn said that because of a crackdown on the chemicals previously used in making cocaine, drug traffickers are processing the drug with benzene, known to cause leukemia and genetic damage in humans.
More than 1,000 Roman Catholics took out an ad defending dissent on abortion and blasting Vatican reprisals against dissenters. Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, said that a main goal of the statement, published as a full-page advertisement in today’s New York Times, is “to send a clear message to the Vatican that Catholics will not be intimidated by reprisals against Catholics who speak out.” In 1984, a group of Catholics took out an ad contending that staunch opposition to abortion was not the only legitimate Catholic stance. Several of the ad’s signers were threatened with expulsion from the church.
Television evangelist Pat Robertson accused the chairman of the Democratic Party of “virulent anti-Christian bigotry” and demanded an apology for comments made in a fund-raising letter. Robertson, speaking at a meeting in Nashville of Southern GOP leaders, referred to a letter signed by Democratic Chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr. that described the evangelist as a “radical right” leader trying to seize control of the Republican Party.
Becoming a doctor, lawyer or accountant is still a good way to get rich, but the richest Americans are in banking, insurance and real estate, a government study reported. The review of wealth in America by the Federal Reserve Board found that only 1% of families earn more than $150,000 a year. And although only 2% of families are headed by someone who works in banking, insurance and real estate, those professions make up 31% of the highest-income group, families earning $280,000 or more annually.
Trustees at Swarthmore College voted to sell all of its $42.5 million in investments in companies that operate in racially segregated South Africa. The board ordered the school to immediately sell its stock in companies that do not comply with the Sullivan Principles, a voluntary code of conduct that calls for racial equality in the workplace. About 50 students took over college President David Fraser’s office for two weeks in December to demand divestiture. Swarthmore is a suburb of Philadelphia.
The commission investigating the fiery police siege of the radical group MOVE will harshly criticize Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode and other city officials and call for a grand jury inquiry, according to news reports. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that an unidentified official paraphrased the report as saying Goode “abdicated his responsibility as a leader” during the May 13 confrontation.
A foreign affairs expert at Harvard broke no university rule when he examined the demise of dictators in research secretly financed by the Central Intelligence Agency, the school has decided. Research by Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard’s Center for International Affairs did not significantly involve the university, Harvard ruled Thursday. An article based on Professor Huntington’s research appeared in the winter issue of the Harvard quarterly International Security. The article concludes, “American interests will generally be best served if long-standing dictators die in bed, soon.”
New Orleans City Councilman Sidney Barthelemy easily defeated state Senator William Jefferson to win election as the city’s mayor after a bitter runoff campaign between the two black Democrats that involved threats of violence on both sides. With all of the city’s polling places reporting. Barthelemy had 93,054 votes and Jefferson had 67,668. Voters also elected two blacks to the City Council, giving blacks a majority on the seven-member body for the first time.
Waving American flags, balloons and banners, with some carrying children on their shoulders, 1,200 people marched away from Los Angeles City Hall today on a walk to promote nuclear disarmament that they hope will take them 3,235 miles to Washington. The march began after arally and concert and a sendoff speech by Mayor Tom Bradley. The marchers first campsite was on the Los Angeles campus of the California State University, 12 miles away. The marchers plan to cover 15 miles a day on their cross-country trek, and hope to complete it in nine months.
Workers at the Disneyland Hotel have rejected a proposed contract and threatened to strike unless a better wage package is offered. A contract covering 1,000 members of the Hotel Employees International Union at the hotel expired at 12:01 AM today. Workers remained on the job but threatened to strike if negotiations were not continued. The hotel, which is not part of the Disneyland amusement park, is owned by the Wrather Corporation of Beverly Hills, California. Top wages at the hotel range from $3.90 an hour to $6 an hour. The union seeks pay increases ranging from 30 cents to 60 cents an hour. A union spokesman said the hotel’s last offer, rejected by the union Friday, was for a 30-cent increase for some workers and no pay increase for others.
A Federal appellate court has upheld an order barring the Interior Department from capturing the last California condors remaining in the wild. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied a request by the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service to lift a District Court’s order halting capture of the birds from their natural habitat and taking them to zoos to breed. The court is to hear arguments in the suit, brought by the National Audubon Society, in May or June. “The Interior Department has to show us a commitment to preserve the habitat and demonstrate to us that it has a captive breeding program with release back into the wild,” said Whitney Tilt, an Audubon Society biologist.
American entertainer and restaurateur Sonny Bono (46) weds (his fourth and final time) American businesswoman Mary Whitaker (24), until his death in 1998.
Quebec’s Peter Šťastný becomes just the 2nd player in NHL history to score 100 points in each of his first 6 seasons, with an assist in an 8-4 Nordiques’ loss to the visiting Buffalo Sabres.
Born:
Sylwia Jaśkowiec, Polish women’s cross-country skier (Olympics, 2010, 1014, 2020), in Myślenice, Poland.
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