The United States expressed guarded confidence today that the cutback ordered in the Soviet missions to the United Nations would not damage relations with Moscow or present new problems in arranging the next summit meeting. A State Department official said the United States had decided to act because of concern within the Administration and Congress that it was becoming difficult to keep track of potential spies. President Reagan, after espionage cases last year, had committed himself to reducing the Soviet presence. In Moscow, the Soviet Government press agency Tass called the American action an “unprecedented” and “hostile” move that violated United States commitments as the host country for United Nations headquarters.
At the United Nations, high-level officials said they were looking into the legality of the United States order cutting the personnel of the three Soviet missions to the United Nations from 275 to 170 by April 1988. In Washington, officials said a task force had been working for several months on the problem posed by the large staffs of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine and Byelorussia. High among the factors was a concern that the Federal Bureau of Investigation could not keep track of so many people. In the Soviet Union, the Government’s Committee for State Security, the K.G.B., similarly keeps track of the movements of American personnel. The officials acknowledged that the action could result in Soviet retaliation or in delaying the next meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader. But the officials said the United States was eager to limit the impact. “We see no reason why this step should impair U.S.-Soviet relations,” said Charles E. Redman, a State Department spokesman.
People in France, Britain and West Germany say they believe American military action against international terrorism would only make the problem worse, even though they are dissatisfied with their own Governments’ handling of the problem, a New York Times Poll shows. The survey found some support for joining American economic sanctions against Libya, something that the Governments of all three countries have declined to do. French respondents favored joining in the sanctions, 42 percent to 29 percent; West Germans were evenly divided, at 33 percent, and the British opposed the sanctions by a margin of 41 percent to 38 percent, a gap equal to the margin of sampling error of the British survey. In the West German survey, the margin of sampling error was also three points; in France it was four points. In addition, less than half the respondents in the three countries said the United States was “overexcited” about terrorism. And most agreed, as President Reagan has argued, that Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organization had been involved in terrorist attacks.
A referendum Wednesday on whether Spain should quit the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has split the nation over the fundamental question of its national identity. Spain joined the European Economic Community in January. According to intellectuals and political figures, with the vote on Wednesday Spaniards will decide whether to complete their integration into the West or remain slightly apart. For almost four centuries, up through the dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco that ended 11 years ago, Spaniards have mainly been an isolationist people, avoiding developments such as the Reformation and two world wars.
An Austrian magazine that published reports accusing Kurt Waldheim of a Nazi past says it has found new evidence to support the charges. But Mr. Waldheim, the former Secretary General of the United Nations and a candidate in the Austrian presidential elections in May, has again denied he was a member of Nazi groups and suggested that the charges were connected with his candidacy. The weekly magazine Profil said it had found a diary in the Vienna state court that refers to a form filled out in Mr. Waldheim’s name in 1940 claiming membership in the SA, or Brownshirts, and a Nazi student union. Profil is to publish an article with a facsimile of the diary on Monday.
Swedish authorities are trying to contact the author of an anonymous letter that “made some interesting observations” about the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme, Stockholm Police Commissioner Hans Holmer said. He declined to reveal details of the letter, but mentioned that it contained the words “23 past 11,” roughly the time of night that Palme was shot February 28 while walking with his wife on a Stockholm street.
Poland and its Western government creditors have reached formal agreement on rescheduling and restructuring $1.6 billion in outstanding debt repayments. A Warsaw radio broadcast, monitored in London, said after a two-day meeting in Paris between the Poles and Western creditor nations that the economically hardpressed Communist country will be allowed to repay its obligations — including $550 million in arrears — over 10 years with a five-year grace period.
Most developing countries would benefit economically from a lower rate of population growth, a study by the National Research Council says. Samuel H. Preston of the University of Pennsylvania, who took part in the study for the Agency for International Development, said this week: “It is obvious to anybody who has thought about it that a population growth strategy by itself is not going to make a poor country rich.” But, he added, the economic well-being of most developing countries would improve as population growth rates slowed.
A close aide to Shimon Peres put the Israeli Prime Minister’s position on President Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile-defense program in unequivocal terms. “If Reagan had not come up with S.D.I. for any other reason, he should have done it for Shimon Peres alone,” said the aide, using the initials for the Strategic Defense Initiative, as the “Star Wars” program is officially known. Though controversy surrounds “Star Wars” in the United States and in other countries that have been invited by the Pentagon to take part in the program, there is no discernible debate in Israel over the desirability of taking part.
Israel has denied entry to 26 so-called Black Hebrews, Interior Ministry spokesman Yitzhak Agasi announced. Agasi said the 26 travelers, reportedly from the Bereshith Cultural Institute in Mt. Vernon, New York, were turned back on their arrival at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv “because they are members of the Black Hebrew sect.” About 2,000 Black Hebrews, mostly Americans, arrived in Israel in the mid-1970s. The sect, not recognized as Jewish by rabbinical authorities, has drawn criticism in Israel for being a closed community that rejects much government authority.
President Hosni Mubarak appears to have weathered a riot by his riot policemen — his worst domestic crisis yet — but he still faces what diplomats and other commentators here say they see as an overwhelming, perhaps insoluble, economic and political crisis. “The prospect for the future is not good, not good at all,” said one experienced diplomat here. His words were echoed by several Western and Arab sources. Indeed, what many here found remarkable about the rampage last week by as many as 17,000 conscript policemen of the Central Security Force who set fire to luxury hotels, nightclubs and restaurants in the shadow of the Pyramids was not that it happened. They say the surprise was that, given the explosive social conditions, it was swiftly and effectively contained.
A car bomb exploded today in East Beirut, the predominantly Christian sector, and 5 people were reported killed and 30 wounded. It was the seventh bombing in the area in seven weeks. The police said a French-made car loaded with 250 pounds of explosives was detonated near offices of President Amin Gemayel’s Phalange Party. There was no immediate assertion of responsibility for the bombing. As ambulances rushed casualties to hospitals and rescue teams looked for survivors, artillery and rocket duels raged across the Green Line dividing the city into Muslim and Christian halves, and in the eastern hills. The police said a man and a woman died as shells and rockets struck residential quarters close to the scene of the clashes. Rockets also fell in the vicinity of President Gemayel’s palace in suburban Baabda, and his troops fought Druse militiamen around the garrison town of Souq al Gharb in the mountains eight miles to the east.
Four French television crewmen were kidnapped Saturday by gunmen in predominantly Muslim West Beirut, witnesses said. The attack came hours after an anonymous caller who said he spoke for the group Islamic Holy War threatened to kill one of another group of French captives.
Visiting Vice President George Bush and Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy met with Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba in a bid to improve U.S.-Tunisian relations, which were strained when Israel bombed the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization outside Tunis last fall. Bush said he was convinced that U.S.-Tunisian relations are “extremely solid.”
Bombs exploded and a government car was attacked today during a nationwide strike in Bangladesh called by opposition parties to protest the military Government’s plan to hold parliamentary elections under martial law on April 26, witnesses and the police said. The police said two policemen guarding the residence of the State Minister for Information, Anwar Zahid, suffered minor injuries when a bomb exploded there.
Cambodian guerrillas said today that they killed 200 Vietnamese soldiers and wounded 150 others in a raid on a town near Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge radio, monitored in Bangkok, said the guerrillas attacked seven targets on Friday in Kampong Speu, 30 miles west of the Cambodian capital. The radio said the seven targets had been captured in 30 minutes. Four Vietnamese tanks sent to relieve the garrison were ambushed and forced to retreat, the radio said.
An agreement phasing out Japanese salmon fishing in international waters off Alaska was reached in U.S.-Japanese talks in Tokyo. The agreement, subject to Canadian approval, provides that Japanese “mother ships” will stop salmon fishing in the eastern half of the Bering Sea in 1988 and in the western half by 1994. The two sides also agreed that Japanese fishing in U.S. 200-mile territorial waters will be limited to 140 “fleet days.” A “fleet day” is a day’s operations by a fleet and its mother ship.
A renowned Filipino art collector helping the new Government sort through the possessions that Ferdinand E. Marcos and his wife, Imelda, left behind at Malacanang Palace said today that she was flabbergasted by her findings. The art collector is Beatrice Zobel, the wife of Jaime Zobel, a member of one of the wealthiest families in the Philippines, whose fortune dates from Spanish colonial times. “There are bills and bills and bills scattered on nightstands and stashed in drawers,” Mrs. Zobel said. “Imelda would buy a million dollars in jewelry at one store in the morning and then turn around and buy $2 million worth from an antique store in the afternoon.” Among the loot are the infamous 3,000 pairs of Imelda’s shoes. The Marcoses former residence will be opened to the public next week as a museum to demonstrate how they lived.
Ferdinand E. Marcos may be tried in absentia in Manila on charges of illegally accumulating a vast fortune during his 20-year presidency, an official said. The official, Jovito R. Salonga, head of a commission seeking the return of Mr. Marcos’s secret wealth, said, “We might sue the Marcoses in civil proceedings here.” Then, he said, the new Philippine Government would use the verdict to “try to get a judgment in the United States” against the Marcos family’s reported property holdings there. Mr. Salonga did not spell out precisely what the charges would be, but said a trial might be held “very soon.”
Canada has moved to ban mandatory retirement of civil servants at age 65 in a drive against discrimination. The proposed policy was contained in a report introduced in the House of Commons on Tuesday by Justice Minister John Crosbie. The report also said that homosexuals should be allowed to serve in the armed forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as well as in civilian jobs and that women should be permitted to assume combat duties in the armed forces.
A compromise with Congress on aid for the Nicaraguan rebels is now sought by the Reagan Administration, which faces defeat on Capitol Hill over its $100 million proposal for the anti-Sandinistas. Reports that the Adminstration is exploring a compromise came in the midst of a continued intense public campaign by the Administration to win support for the program. Today, for instance, President Reagan devoted his regular Saturday radio address to the issue. Administration and legislative officials said one compromise under discussion would delay military aid to the rebels for several months while efforts were made to start talks with the Nicaraguan Government, which Mr. Reagan considers a Communist threat to the region and to the United States. If Nicaragua failed to negotiate with the rebels, the money would be released.
Guerrilla violence killed seven Colombians on the eve of national elections for 311 seats in the National Assembly and for city councils in about 1,000 towns. In one of the worst incidents, leftist insurgents threw a bomb into a restaurant in the Caribbean port of Turbo, killing a policeman and a civilian and injuring nine people, police said. In Bogota, the capital, two guerrillas were killed after taking a mother and her two daughters hostage. In Arauca, near the Venezuelan border, two rebels and a policeman were killed in a gun battle when the rebels ambushed a police patrol.
A general who took over an air base after he was dismissed for insubordination offered to surrender today if Ecuadorean President Leon Febres Cordero agreed to discuss corruption allegations against two other military leaders. There were signs that the rebellion by the officer, Gen. Frank Vargas, was crumbling. Two air force generals and about 50 other officers who initially backed the takeover fled the air base today and met with Gen. Jorge Andrade, who was named to replace General Vargas as Chief of Staff and air force commander.
South African police fired tear gas to disperse about 3,000 mourners at the funeral of a black guerrilla, and 10 people needed medical treatment afterward, witnesses said. The incident occurred as the crowd tried to follow the coffin to a cemetery in Soweto near Johannesburg. The funeral was for Cornelius Oupa Tau, 31, who killed himself with a hand grenade when police tried to arrest him last month. Elsewhere, police reported scattered violence on the first night after lifting of South Africa’s state of emergency.
In its 18 months of harshness and confrontation, South Africa’s violence has bred a new kind of arithmetic — the statistics of loss. Thus, in clinical terms that do not mask the misery and suffering, the statistics say that from January to July 20, 1985, an average of 1.6 people died each day in the nation’s turmoil. Then, after the imposition July 21 of the state-of-emergency decree that was lifted on Friday, the average became 3.22. In the first two months of 1986, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations, the bloodshed nudged upward, to 3.6 killings a day.
Japanese probe Suisei passes Halley’s Comet at 109,800 km.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has exposed astronauts to numerous potentially “catastrophic” hazards because of pressure to maintain its launching schedule, the chief of the agency’s astronaut office has asserted. The official, John W. Young, made the complaints in two internal memorandums dated March 4, after a Presidential panel investigating the Jan. 28 explosion of the shuttle Challenger heard extensive testimony criticizing NASA’s decision-making procedures. In an enclosure Mr. Young gave what he called an “awesome” list of safety-related problems that he said “ought to be fixed so that we do not lose any more space shuttles and flight crews.” “Many of these potentially serious conditions were discovered after we started operating,” Mr. Young, a veteran astronaut, wrote. “On an individual basis, they were not big enough to slow or stop the launch rates. But totally, this list is awesome. The list proves to me that there are some very lucky people around here.”
Women demanding continued access to abortion are predicting that tens of thousands of supporters will march past the White House today, countering anti-abortion groups’ claims of superior numbers. The demonstration comes nearly seven weeks after an opposing crowd estimated by police at 37,000 marched in Washington calling for the outlawing of most or all abortions.
The loss of federal revenue-sharing money this year will force cities to raise property tax rates by an average 25% if they are to maintain services, a survey of city leaders by the National League of Cities said. Officials in 58% of the 655 cities surveyed said they anticipate a combination of tax increases and spending cutbacks because of the scheduled end of revenue sharing this fall. The league released its survey as 3,500 mayors and council members from across the country were opening their three-day congressional conference in Washington. Their highest priority has been reviving the $4.6-billion revenue-sharing program.
The Democratic National Committee, still polishing a new image of harmony and discipline, approved changes in its 1988 Presidential nominating rules today and, in contrast to past debates of this kind, left no blood on the floor. The only real dissent was registered by some of the committee’s black members who unsuccessfully tried to eliminate a rule requiring a Presidential candidate to win 15 percent of the vote in a district in a primary or caucus to qualify for a proportional share of national convention delegates. The threshold in 1984 was 20 percent, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson contended that the rule deprived him of 400 delegates in his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination. But today, after the battle to eliminate or further lower the threshold was lost, former Mayor Maynard Jackson of Atlanta, who supported Mr. Jackson’s candidacy in 1984, declared, “Even this will not divide us.”
More Americans are taking a little bit of the law into their own hands by getting involved with neighborhood watch groups or taking other steps to protect themselves from crime, a government study said. At least 38% of American families participate in neighborhood watch programs, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Statistics found. The report said engraving valuables and installing burglar alarms are other crime prevention methods used by many Americans. About half of all households earning $50,000 or more a year said they used at least one crime-prevention method, contrasted with only one-fifth of households with incomes of less than $10,000, the study found.
The Food and Drug Administration, after inspecting 40,000 jars of Gerber baby foods, said only 12 contained glass fragments and those were too small to be hazardous. Bill Grigg, speaking for the FDA, said the sampling was taken from warehouses in 18 states, and that four of the 12 contaminated jars had come from Maryland. He did not give the source of the others, but said most of the glass pieces were no larger than the head of a pin, and the largest fragment was less than half an inch long. The FDA has received 259 complaints about glass in the products from people in 35 states.
The Reagan Administration wants to establish a new court to hear the thousands of cases filed each year by people who contend they have been improperly denied Social Security retirement or disability benefits. Officials from the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services said a new tribunal was needed because the regular Federal courts had been deluged with cases filed by people removed from the disability rolls. A specialized court could also provide greater uniformity in interpreting the complex Social Security laws, they said. When told about the proposal, which has not been made public, lawyers for the disabled criticized it as unnecessary and as perhaps impeding the ability of needy people to protect their rights under Social Security.
A tide of illegal immigrants sweeping over the border from Mexico is straining border communities from Texas to California, according to officials throughout the region. Even in communities long accustomed to increasing illegal immigration, people say that rising crime and a continuing burden on schools and hospitals are lending a new sense of urgency. “The impact is too damn great for border communities to deal with anymore,” said Judge Pat O’Rourke of El Paso County. “In 18 to 24 months, it’s just going to overwhelm the social service system on the border.” The situation is also evoking concern that stepped-up operations to enforce immigration laws are leading to harassment of Hispanic people. Alan C. Nelson, Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said last month that officials of the service expected to apprehend 1.8 million aliens entering the United States from Mexico this year, about 50 percent more than last year’s record of 1.2 million.
Trans World Airlines, already hard pressed, could be seriously hurt by the strike of flight attendants if other unions join the walkout, industry experts say. They say the possibility of that appears slim, but there were reports yesterday of strong support of the strike in some places. The 6,000 attendants walked off the job early Friday, creating another hurdle for Carl C. Icahn, the New York investor who bought control last year, in his effort to return the airline to profitability. As the strike went into its second day yesterday, there was no indication as to when talks would resume.
The United Steelworkers of America, after ending a strike against four major makers of cans, has renewed contract negotiations with five troubled steel companies. The union and the LTV Steel Company, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the National Steel Company, Armco Inc. and the Inland Steel Company, have agreed to settle their differences this month. The current contracts expire July 31.
A 44-year-old Soviet defector has been ordered to stand trial for the death of his former lover, a Soviet emigre who testified for the prosecution at the first espionage trial of Richard W. Miller, a former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The defector, Vladimar Ratchikhine, was bound over Friday for trial in a ruling by Judge Laurence Rubin of Municipal Court. Mr. Ratchikhine, who remains in custody, is to be arraigned March 21 in Superior Court.
Thirty dairies in northwest Arkansas were quarantined while state health officials checked for contamination in milk from cows fed corn laced with a suspected carcinogen. Six other dairies were quarantined earlier because cattle were fed corn contaminated with the banned pesticide heptachlor, said Jerry Hill, director of the state’s Bureau of Environmental Health Services.
Some intensive care units save up to three times as many lives of severely ill patients as others, according to a federally financed study of 5,030 patients in 13 hospitals. The study is believed to be the first that compares the death rates of intensive care units among hospitals, and the most surprising finding was that the survival records of hospitals affiliated with medical schools were exceeded by those in some other hospitals, according to the report’s senior author, Dr. William A. Knaus of George Washington University Medical Center in Washington. There is a widespread feeling among academic medical leaders that teaching hospitals, which tend to care for the sickest patients, provide the best care. Ten of the 13 hospitals in the study were teaching centers.
Leading New York Republicans appointed a task force of former law enforcement officials to recommend anti-corruption reform in the New York City government, now mired in a burgeoning bribery scandal. The task force will examine state election laws, the city charter, the public officers law, the penal law and other laws and recommend changes to the state Legislature in an effort to eliminate corruption.
Four students protesting Brown University’s investments in businesses doing business in South Africa halted a nine-day fast today after their temporary suspension from the school. Eric Widmer, the university’s dean of students, said he would immediately reinstate the students, but Robert Reichley, Brown’s vice president for university relations, said that would take several days.
A 925-pound polar bear named Caesar mauled and killed his intended mate, Princess Snowball, at a zoo in Brookfield, Illinois Friday, a spokesman for the zoo said. Keepers had placed the bears together in a private grotto in the hope that they would mate and produce offspring, said C. Jean Baker, a spokesman for the Brookfield Zoo in this Chicago suburb. “The male became extremely agitated almost immediately when the female entered,” Miss Baker said. “He attacked and went for her throat.” She said keepers tried to separate the bears by using prongs and blasts of water.
Arctic winds broke records for cold in the Northeast, while forest and brush fires raged in droughtridden parts of the South. A cold front from Canada sent temperatures plunging from Michigan to Massachusetts and as far south as the District of Columbia. Overnight lows were subzero in the Great Lakes region and in the teens in the Middle Atlantic states. Meanwhile, firefighters battled flames that cut a swath eight miles long in Kisatchie National Forest, Louisiana. Gusty winds fanned fires over more than 500 acres in South Carolina.
The Young Ones and Cliff Richard release new version of single “Living Doll” for Comic Relief charity.
27th SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament: Kentucky beats Alabama, 83–72.
7th Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament: St. John’s beats Syracuse, 70–69.
Martina Navratilova is 1st tennis player to earn $10 million.
Born:
Thomas Morstead, NFL punter (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 44-Saints, 2009; Pro Bowl, 2012; New Orleans Saints, New York Jets, Atlanta Falcons, Miami Dolphins, San Francisco 49ers), in Pearland, Texas.
Alexei Nikolayevich Mishin, Russian figure skating coach and former pair skater, in Sevastopol, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Died:
Hubert Fichte, 50, German writer, dies of an AIDS related illness.
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