Kurt Waldheim, former Secretary General of the United Nations, was attached to a German Army command in World War II that fought brutal campaigns against Yugoslav partisans and engaged in mass deportations of Greek Jews, according to official documents made available here. The documents also show that, as a young man, he was enrolled in two Nazi Party organizations. The documents, which were obtained by The New York Times, were found among German military records and in the archives of the Austrian Justice Ministry and the Foreign Ministry. Austria was part of Nazi Germany from the Anschluss, or union, of 1938, to the end of World War II. In authorized biographies and in a recent autobiography, Mr. Waldheim does not discuss his activities during the years involved, 1942 and 1943. Mr. Waldheim, who was Secretary General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1982, is campaigning for the Austrian Presidency in a May 5 election.
Mr. Waldheim, who headed the United Nations Secretariat from 1972 to 1982, acknowledged in an interview yesterday that he had served in the units in question. But he said he had played a minor role and knew of no war crimes or atrocities ascribed to the units. In the interview, he said it was the first time that he had heard of mass deportations of Greek Jews from Salonika. Mr. Waldheim is running for the presidency of Austria. The election is scheduled for May 5, and Mr. Waldheim, in recent polls, has had a slight edge over his Socialist opponent, Kurt Steyrer. He accused his opponents of using the information about the war years to damage him politically. “The timing of it is perfect,” he said. “For 40 years these things have rested.” There have been past charges that he had had Nazi associations. Mr. Waldheim has said on each occasion that he never was a member of a Nazi organization or a Nazi-affiliated organization.
The Soviet economy is being crippled by red tape, cost overruns, obsolete construction and a lag in applied research, according to Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov. Speaking to the 27th Communist Party congress as it began its second week of deliberations, Mr. Ryzhkov said that one quarter of the present construction projects had been designed 10 to 20 years ago and that costs were running 24 percent over estimates. Western diplomats described his speech as one of the most detailed indictments of the economy offered by the new Kremlin leadership under Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Echoing Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Ryzhkov called for “radical reform” and “a profound restructuring.” Although his speech, like Mr. Gorbachev’s keynote address last week, did not go into details, Mr. Ryzhkov left the door open to extensive changes, diplomats said.
Olof Palme’s successor said his attitude to his personal security was the same as that of the slain Prime Minister and that he expected sometimes to walk in public without guards. Ingvar Carlsson, the acting Prime Minister, said he thought the maintenance of Sweden’s “open democracy” required that political leaders not be cut off from ordinary life or casual contacts with other citizens.
Seventeen Czechoslovak tourists have been reported missing on a skiing trip in northern Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said. Western diplomats said it seems likely that the skiers, all from Prague, have fled to the West. Tanjug said the Czechoslovaks left their hotel soon after arriving at Celj last week. Tanjug said the group leader told the police in Ljubljana that the missing tourists have relatives in the West.
Five activists of a small opposition party openly hostile to the Soviet Union went on trial today in Warsaw on charges of leading an illegal organization. The men, members of the Confederation for an Independent Poland, were arrested in a raid in Warsaw last year and could face up to 10 years in prison.
Olof Palme’s successor said today that his attitude about his personal security was the same as that of the slain Prime Minister’s and that he expected sometimes to walk on the streets without guards. Acting Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, who was confirmed today as leader of the Social Democratic Party, said he thought that keeping Sweden’s “open democracy” required that political leaders not be cut off from ordinary life or casual contacts with citizens. Asked at a news conference whether he would walk unprotected in the streets as Mr. Palme was doing when he was gunned down late Friday night, Mr. Carlsson replied, “I am not doing it just now, but I hope to do it in the future.” The police made no statement today on the progress of their investigation into the assassination. Up until Sunday evening, they acknowledged that they had no firm leads on any suspect or groups, but the security police reported last year that a movement of Kurdish exiles had threatened Mr. Palme’s life.
A general strike organized by Protestants paralyzed commerce and transportation today in much of Northern Ireland. Organizers hailed the success of the strike, which was called to protest a British-Irish agreement, signed in November, that gives the Irish Republic a say in Northern Ireland’s affairs. “The workers have responded brilliantly,” said the Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, who threw all his political weight behind the protest. “The strike has gone very well.”
Vatican officials said today that antiabortion groups in the United States were urging action against the signers of advertisements asserting the right of Roman Catholics to dissent on the issue. The remarks by the officials came in response to questions concerning an advertisement in The New York Times on Sunday. The advertisement, which carried the names of more than 1,000 Catholics, asserted “the right to responsible dissent within the Church.”
A policeman was killed and 11 civilians were wounded in artillery duels between the Christian and Muslim parts of the Lebanese capital today. Artillery shells and rockets struck residential quarters on both sides of the Green Line that divides Beirut, and the army declared all crossing points unsafe. The Christian radio station, Voice of Lebanon, called the fighting the worst in several months. Also today, the fundamentalist Party of God said it had “executed” 11 Lebanese for roles in bombing a Muslim suburb last March.
A charred body believed to be that of a missing Danish tourist was found in the rubble of a hotel room at a hotel in the suburb of Giza that was set ablaze by rioting paramilitary policemen last week. Danish Embassy officials said the woman, whose name was given as Ann Pedersen, had been missing since the rebellion. They said they were working on positive identification of the body.
Iran asserted today that its forces had captured strategic heights in northeast Iraq and killed more than 500 Iraqi soldiers on the Faw Peninsula in the south. Iraq reported its warplanes bombed Iranian oil installations on Kharg Island. Independent confirmation of the assertions was not available. The official Iranian press agency said a United Nations delegation looking into Iranian assertions that Iraq was using chemical weapons left Tehran today after a four-day inspection.
Iran reportedly indicated that it has dropped one of its key demands for ending hostilities in its five-year-old war with Iraq. The semi-official Al Ittihad newspaper in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, said Iran has told the noncombatant nations of the Persian Gulf that it would accept an end to the war in return for $50 billion in war reparations. The newspaper said Iran made no mention of what has long been a central demand: the removal of the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as a condition for ending the war.
Afghanistan registered a protest with Iran over what it called increasing interference in its affairs, including border violations in which 20 people were killed in the last year, Afghanistan’s official Kabul radio said. The broadcast, monitored in Pakistan, said the Soviet-backed regime accused Iran of trying, through interference and propaganda, to support Muslim rebels in Afghanistan.
Pakistan announced an agreement with tribal dissidents in the sensitive Khyber Pass area, close to the Afghan border. According to the official Associated Press of Pakistan, dissident chieftain Wali Khan Kukikhel pledged loyalty to the government at a meeting in Peshawar. The accord reportedly assured the tribesmen that their customs and autonomy will be respected. Pakistani troops bulldozed the houses of more than 100 Khyber tribesmen in December, after they refused to surrender arms given them by Afghanistan.
The new Government of the Philippines moved in Federal District Court in Hawaii today to recover millions of dollars in currency taken by Ferdinand E. Marcos and his party when they left the country last week. In an agreement worked out in Honolulu before the start of a court hearing today, lawyers representing the United States Customs Service agreed that on Friday, they would provide the Philippine Central Bank with an accounting of the currency contained in 22 crates that were flown to Hawaii last week. Reagan Administration officials said Customs officials were completing a full inventory on the currency and other valuables, which were impounded after they arrived on an Air Force transport plane. The plane arrived a day after the Marcos party came to Hawaii on another C-141 provided by the United States. In New York, a State Supreme Court judge said he had issued a temporary restraining order in a case involving four pieces of real estate in Manhattan and one on Long Island that the Philippine Government contends were acquired with funds improperly amassed by Mr. Marcos while he was President. The Administration officials said the material impounded in Hawaii included millions of dollars’ worth of freshly printed pesos, negotiable securities and many “documents.”
A New York State Supreme Court Judge said yesterday that he had issued a temporary restraining order in a case involving four pieces of real estate in Manhattan and one on Long Island that the new Philippine Government contends were acquired with funds improperly amassed by Ferdinand E. Marcos while he was President of the Philippines. The order, issued by Judge Elliott Wilk, temporarily bars Mr. Marcos and people described as associates as well as corporations that an organization retained by the new Philippine Government says it believes own and control assets acquired with the funds from transferring, conveying or encumbering the properties. The properties include the Herald Center, the Crown Building on West 57th Street, buildings at 40 Wall Street and 200 Madison Avenue, and Lindenmere, an estate in Center Moriches, L.I. Speaking by telephone from the New York County Court House, at 60 Centre Street, which houses his courtroom, Judge Wilk said he had issued the order Sunday evening at his West Side apartment, where he was visited by Filipino and American lawyers associated with the organization, the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit human rights group based in New York.
Corazon C. Aquino was hailed as the Philippines’s de facto President by the leaders of the National Assembly majority that had pronounced her the electoral loser only two weeks ago. “We can deliver to her on a silver platter, any time of the day or night,” said Jose Ronos, secretary general of the K.B.L., or New Society Movement, in describing the party’s new enthusiasm for Mrs. Aquino. In their first caucus since the former party leader, Ferdinand E. Marcos, left last Wednesday, the New Society Movement members lightly questioned Mrs. Aquino’s constitutional authority but stressed their willingness to “extend all kinds of cooperation” to the new President nevertheless. The development came as 13 policemen and 3 civilians were reported slain in a machine-gun ambush in southern Luzon, 210 miles southeast of Manila, A Government news report said at least nine other people were wounded in the attack.
A New Zealand plane has spotted a submarine in the territorial waters of the Cook Islands, an associated territory, and has reported the finding to the United States, Prime Minister David Lange said. He would not identify the submarine or say whether it had left the area. Most defense links between the United States and New Zealand, including intelligence sharing, were cut after Lange’s government banned nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered warships from its ports. However, sources in Wellington said Washington has continued to provide reports on regional activity.
Freedom of the press does not exist or is severely restricted in Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Guyana and Suriname, the InterAmerican Press Assn. was told. But Wilbur G. Landrey, chairman of the press freedom committee, told delegates at IAPA’s mid-year meeting in Salvador, Brazil, that there was “major good news” for press freedom in the fall of Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.
President Reagan meets with members of the Nicaraguan Contra group to discuss an aid package to help their resistance. President Reagan warned Congress of a “strategic disaster” if it failed to approve military aid to Nicaraguan insurgents, who he said would be crushed like “the Hungarian freedom fighters” without the assistance. Mr. Reagan, intensifying his push for $70 million in military aid for the rebels and $30 million in nonlethal assistance, met with three Nicaraguan opposition leaders, who told him that many of the insurgents had gone into hiding without ammunition or other supplies. One rebel leader, Alfonso Robelo Callejas, a former member of the Nicaraguan junta and one of three directors of the United Nicaraguan Opposition, said his group had told Mr. Reagan that about 6,000 insurgents were active inside Nicaragua and that another 22,000 sympathizers, some of whom were once armed rebels, had gone into hiding in the mountains and border areas.
The United States is withholding new economic and military aid to Bolivia until it has assurances that the South American nation is taking steps to wipe out at least 10,000 acres of coca, the plant used in making cocaine, U.S. officials said. Bolivia is the world’s second-largest producer of coca, trailing Peru slightly. The holdup will cover all new economic and military assistance to Bolivia until 10% of the nation’s coca crop is eradicated, the U.S. Embassy in La Paz said. In the last three years, it has received more than $60 million a year in economic aid and $3 million to $5 million in military aid.
The Chilean Ambassador and at least 11 other people were killed in Caracas, Venezuela today when a fire broke out in a building housing Chilean Embassy offices. The state television said two embassy employees had jumped 14 floors to their deaths. It reported that the death toll could reach 15. Ambassador Carlos da Costa Nora was among those who perished, according to Lieutenant Colonel Enrique Andres Garcia of the Fire Department.
Seven black rebels were slain in an ambush by South African police officers, officials said. The early-morning incident was described as one of the most serious gun battles of its kind in recent years. A police spokesman said the seven were ambushed after an informer told the police that insurgents from the African National Congress planned to attack the police station in the township, Guguletu. Grenade Injures Policeman There was no immediate confirmation that the slain blacks were from the African Nationalist Congress, the outlawed South African insurgent group. But there was speculation here that if the seven were indeed guerrillas, their presence in Guguletu could represent a new stage in efforts to bring the long-simmering insurgency into the nation’s black residential areas.
A senior astronaut voiced concern that he and other astronauts were not informed that the space shuttle had a chronic problem with seals on its booster rockets. Henry W. Hartsfield Jr., who has flown three shuttle missions, two as commander, said it was “amazing” that crews were left unaware even after seal problems had been detected in 12 of the 24 previous shuttle flights and a committee had been formed to consider redesigns. “I am very much upset we did not know about it,” he said “It caught me completely by surprise.” Trouble with the O-ring seals on the solid-fuel booster rockets is now regarded as the chief suspect in the explosion that destroyed the shuttle Challenger on January 28, killing all seven crew members. Mr. Hartsfield was one of four astronauts made available for interviews. All said they were unaware of the problem but he was the most vocal about not being told about potential risks to his life. “I would probably have elected to go fly anyhow, but the fact that I never had the opportunity to make up my own mind kind of made me angry,” he said.
A robot submersible descended to the ocean floor today to help the crew of a Scottish salvage ship begin recovery of a 4,200-pound piece of wreckage from the space shuttle Challenger’s left-hand booster rocket, space agency officials said. If the attempt is successful it will clear the way for the eventual recovery of wreckage from Challenger’s right-side solid-fuel booster rocket, the one that is believed to have ruptured Jan. 28, touching off the explosion of the external fuel tank and killing all seven crew members. “We’re expecting the Stenna Workhorse to probably come in Tuesday with the debris it is recovering today,” a National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman, Andrea Shea, said of the Scottish salvage ship.
A revenue increase of $16 billion is called for in a 1987 budget plan being discussed by the chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees. In addition, the plan sets the “starting point” for negotiations on the 1987 military budget at an increase for inflation only. President Reagan has requested an increase of 8 percent, in addition to an inflation adjustment. The lower “starting point” would make it difficult for him to get more than the inflation adjustment, unless he withdraws his strong opposition to tax increases. An agreement along those lines between Representative William H. Gray 3d of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, and Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, a Republican, was being worked out by their staffs tonight, subject to approval by the chairmen themselves. The two men’s staffs were understood to have agreed in principle over the weekend, with the initiative coming from Mr. Gray. Congressional aides carefully reported the discussions in terms of a “revenue increase” because, they said, existing tax rates might not have to be increased. Among the other possibilities are higher fees for people who use Government services, enactment of a brief tax amnesty and perhaps the sale of some Government assets to the private sector.
President Reagan saluted Senator Paul Laxalt (R-Nevada) as “one of the guiding stars of a political revolution that has shaken America and the world.” The Reagans topped the guest list at the $1,000-a-plate tribute to the senator. The proceeds will go to a political fund, controlled by Laxalt, that will be used to help GOP candidates in 1986 and 1988. Laxalt could be a recipient of those funds if he decides to run for President in 1988.
President Reagan meets with Russell A. Rourke, new Secretary of the Air Force.
A drug-use test for most workers was urged by the President’s Commission on Organized Crime after a 32-month study. The report says the government should test all federal employees and should not award federal contracts to private employers that do not begin drug testing programs, a proposal that brought immediate opposition from legislators and union leaders. And it urges all private employers to seriously consider testing their employees as well. Although the proposal was immediately criticized as unconstitutional, Rodney Smith, the commission’s deputy executive director and the author of the drug-enforcement report, said, “If you take an honest look, in most all cases it would be suitable.”
The Supreme Court agreed today to hear a major case involving the pocket veto power of the President and the right of Congress or its members to challenge Presidential actions in court. Also today, the Court turned down without comment the appeal by Christine A. Craft, a television newscaster who was asking the Court to reinstate a $325,000 award by a jury in her suit against her former employer, whom she had accused of demoting her because of her appearance. The pocket veto case stems from a 1983 bill making it a condition for military aid to El Salvador for the country to make progress in protecting human rights. Congress went into recess after approving the bill and President Reagan, who opposed it, held that since Congress was not in session he had exercised a pocket veto by holding the bill unsigned. Thirty-three House Democrats, the bipartisan leadership of the House and the Republican-controlled Senate challenged Mr. Reagan’s action in court, arguing that he lacked constitutional authority to use the pocket veto in the interval between two yearlong sessions of the same Congress.
A Federal district judge today refused to block the Farmers Home Administration from resuming foreclosure procedures, which could end a two-year moratorium. The Federal agency, a lender of last resort for farmers, began sending notices to some 65,000 borrowers nationwide last month after having revamped its repayment and foreclosure rules to conform with an earlier order by the judge, Bruce Van Sickle of the Federal District Court here. The warnings were sent to borrowers who had not made any payments on their loans from the agency in three or more years.
The Interior Department said it had eliminated the $25 application fee and taken other steps aimed at making it easier to adopt a wild horse or burro. Robert Burford, director of the Bureau of Land Management, said the fee “seemed to discourage people from applying.” In the fiscal year ending last September 30, the bureau rounded up 18,959 wild horses and burros from public lands in the West. On September 30, it had about 9,900 in corrals. The bureau charges $125 for a horse and $75 for a burro.
The chairman of a Philadelphia commission investigating the MOVE battle confirmed the accuracy of the leaked draft report that harshly criticized city officials. Meanwhile, Mayor W. Wilson Goode said he will still run for reelection next year despite a finding in the report that he “abdicated his authority” when 11 MOVE members died and 61 houses were destroyed by fire last May 13 in a violent confrontation with police. “We do not expect the final version of these drafts to differ substantially from what has already been published,” said William Brown III, head of the Special Investigation Commission.
Philadelphia’s former No. 3 police officer was sentenced to 13 years in prison and fined $105,000 for heading a ring the federal government said extorted up to $1 million from people associated with illegal gambling and prostitution. Former chief inspector Eugene Sullivan, 63, once considered a candidate for the post of police commissioner, was the 29th officer convicted in a four-year FBI investigation of corruption.
The slowly unfurling allegations of wrongdoing against some of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington’s aides and City Council allies seem to have thrown into disarray an administration that in early December was confident it had finally found its stride. The allegations of corruption have not implicated the Mayor himself, but not unlike the situation in New York City, they are seriously complicating his efforts to manage the city. The problem is coming at a particularly bad time because on March 18 Mayor Washington faces a political showdown in special aldermanic elections in seven wards. He has been counting on those elections to finally give him control of the Council, where signs of cooperation with the Mayor started to emerge last year when he won support for a major bond issue and for his budget.
Two Democratic Senators, Alan Cranston of California and Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, formally announced yesterday that they would seek re-election. Mr. Cranston, 71 years old and the Senate’s minority whip, was first elected to the Senate in 1968. Seven Republicans are seeking a chance to defeat him, including Representative Bobbi Fiedler, who officially entered the race yesterday, less than a week after being cleared of charges she violated state election laws. The primary is June 3. In Little Rock, Arkansas, Mr. Bumpers stopped short of saying he would not seek a Presidential nomination. “I’m just saying I’m not looking beyond six years in the United States Senate,” Mr. Bumpers said. He served two two-year gubernatorial terms before he won the Senate seat in 1974. Asa Hutchinson of Fort Smith, a former United States Attorney, has announced as a candidate for the Republican nomination May 27.
A jury sentenced a Navy surgeon to four years in prison for surgical incompetence and errors that led to the deaths of three patients. The military jury also ordered the surgeon, Commander Donal M. Billig, dismissed from the Navy, the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge, and it took away his $66,089 salary and military benefits. Commander Billig is the former chief heart surgeon at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
Federal prosecutors said today they would detail how a Navy communications specialist purchased luxury goods with thousands of dollars in cash, which, they say, he received from the Soviet Union in exchange for military secrets. In a three-month period in 1980, they said, the communications specialist, Jerry A. Whitworth, spent $30,000 in cash on several items, including a $1,200 video system. He received a Navy salary of less than $30,000. Mr. Whitworth, who has pleaded not guilty to espionage charges, is scheduled to go on trial later this week.
The long-awaited preliminary hearing of the man accused of killing 14 people, began today with an effort by the defense to suppress crucial evidence in the case. The police and prosecution say Richard Ramirez, 26 years old, is the “night stalker” who may have committed the 14 killings and scores of other felonies, primarily in Los Angeles from June 1984 through summer 1985. He was arrested August 31 after angry citizens seized him when he attempted to steal an automobile. Later that day he was interviewed by the police and members of the sheriff’s department. His lawyers say Mr. Ramirez made incriminating statements to the police about his car and items found in the vehicle. The lawyers say that this material should be suppressed because the police failed to tell Mr. Ramirez that he was entitled to remain silent and to obtain an attorney. Judge James F. Nelson of Municipal Court decided to listen to a tape recording of the interview to determine if the police had in fact failed to give Mr. Ramirez the warnings.
A Navy commander convicted of sexually pursuing enlisted women under his command was fined $10,000 and ordered to forfeit $30,000 in pay, but the all-male court-martial panel in Newport, Rhode Island, spared him a jail term. Commander John R. Hollis, 39, also was ordered confined to the Newport Naval Base for 60 days and had his chances of future promotion severely reduced. He had faced up to eight years in prison and ouster from the Navy for his conviction last week on four counts of fraternization and one of adultery.
Efforts by extremist groups to exploit farm problems with anti-Semitic propaganda, a trend widely noticed in recent months, have been generally rejected in the rural Middle West, according to a poll by Louis Harris & Associates. About one in four of the 606 respondents in rural Iowa and Nebraska questioned by telephone January 23-24 in the survey revealed anti-Semitic sentiments. But that was lower than levels that have been found in earlier surveys of the general public.
Not until the early 1960’s did Yale University end an informal admissions policy that restricted Jewish enrollment to about 10 percent, according to a new book published by Yale University Press. The book, “Joining the Club,” which began as a sophomore term paper by Dan A. Oren, a 1979 Yale graduate, documents anti-Semitism reaching from fraternity brothers to board trustees. Much of the research is based on university documents. One document, a folder now in the university archives, labeled “Jewish Problem,” contains a memo from the admissions chairman of 1922 urging limits on “the alien and unwashed element.” The next year, the admissions committee enacted the “Limitation of Numbers” policy, an informal quota. Jewish enrollment was held to about 10 percent for four decades.
Four Brown University students continued a fast for a fifth day yesterday to protest South Africa’s racial segregation, but about 200 Smith College students have ended a seven-day sit-in after the school agreed to discuss South Africa-related investments. Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, meanwhile, have built a mock shantytown they say symbolizes oppression of the black majority in South Africa under apartheid. Students at Wesleyan University in Connecticut spent part of the weekend repairing a vandalized wooden shanty.
Atlanta’s Capital City Club is weighing a developer’s offer, reportedly of $14 million, to buy its land on downtown Peachtree Street, demolish its clubhouse and build an office tower. The club is then expected to buy or lease space at the top.
Competency tests for teachers in Texas are constitutional and should not be delayed, a judge ruled in Austin. State District Judge Harley Clark ruled that the required test of reading and writing for teachers and administrators is in line with public school reforms legislated in 1984 The Texas Education Agency is to test 210,000 public school administrators and teachers on Monday. Math and science teachers are not included. Those who fail and do not pass a make-up exam in June will lose their teaching certificates. The Texas State Teachers Assn. had challenged the testing. saying school boards should decide competency.
About 200 of 1,200 peace marchers, dissatisfied by a lack of showers and procedures for food rationing, have dropped out of a cross-country trek for nuclear disarmament after two days, officials said today. “Some of the marchers didn’t realize the conditions they found themselves under, nor did they put forth what was expected of them,” said Cathy Lurie, a spokesman for PRO-Peace, the committee that is organizing the Great Peace March of 1986.
Entertainer Harry Belafonte announced he would not challenge Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-New York), saying his commitments to fight South African apartheid and other causes precluded running for the Senate. Belafonte, who turned 59 on Saturday, became the latest in a line of prominent public figures, including former vice presidential candidate Geraldine A. Ferraro, to turn down Democratic Party entreaties to run against the state’s junior senator in November.
Former Representative Charles A. Halleck of Indiana, the “100 percent Republican,” as he called himself, who served as both the majority and the minority leader of the House of Representatives in a 34-year political career, died today in Lafayette, Indiana. He was 85 years old and had been ill with pneumonia. A combative politician, Mr. Halleck became familiar to millions of American television viewers in the 1960’s as a participant in a regularly scheduled news conference with Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois that came to be known as “the Ev and Charlie Show.” Their always-partisan targets were the Democratic Presidents, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and their policies. Senator Dirksen was sometimes described as the star of “the soft-shoe” numbers, while Mr. Halleck performed a more athletic tap dance on the Democrats, such as terming the Kennedy family “a dynasty.”
Elektra Records releases “Master of Puppets”, the third studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica.
Profit taking gave Wall Street its biggest loss yesterday in nearly two weeks, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing below the 1,700 level for the first time since last Wednesday. The stock market’s poor showing was in sharp contrast to the improvement in bonds, where prices again rose as investors continued to cheer declining oil prices. Both stocks and bonds have recently been moving in tandem, helped by the prospects of reduced inflation and lower worldwide interest rates.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1696.67 (-12.39)
Born:
Stacie Orrico, American pop singer-songwriter (“Stuck”), born in Seattle, Washington.
Brett Festerling, Canadian NHL defenseman (Anaheim Ducks, Winnipeg Jets), in Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada.
Wes O’Neill, Canadian NHL defenseman (Colorado Avalanche), in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Jed Collins, NFL fullback (New Orleans Saints, Detroit Lions), in San Juan Capistrano, California.
Eric Farris, MLB pinch hitter, second baseman, and outfielder (Milwaukee Brewers), in Sacramento, California.
Died:
Charles Halleck, 85, American politician (Rep.-R-Indiana, 1935–1968), of pneumonia.
History Diaries 