Six world leaders have appealed to President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev to forgo nuclear testing until the next summit meeting, according to a worldwide group of legislators who organized the initiative. In a letter sent on Friday and made public yesterday, the six leaders offered to verify compliance with such a moratorium through on-site inspections and “monitoring activities,” including the use of seismological equipment near test sites, according to the legislators’ group, Parliamentarians Global Action. The Soviet Union says it has conducted no tests since August, but the self-imposed moratorium is scheduled to expire this month. The United States, while affirming that a comprehensive test ban is a long-term goal, has said continued underground testing is necessary in the interim. Among those who joined in the appeal for Washington and Moscow to halt testing was Prime Minister Olof Palme of Sweden, who signed the letter on February 28, the day he was slain in Stockholm by an unknown gunman. The other leaders who signed the letter are President Raul Alfonsin of Argentina; Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India; President Miguel de la Madrid of Mexico; Julius K. Nyerere, the former President of Tanzania, and Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou of Greece.
Three American officials said today that former Senator John G. Tower was resigning “for personal reasons” as an arms negotiator. Mr. Tower has handled the long-range nuclear weapons aspect in the Geneva arms talks with the Soviet Union. He was appointed to the post 14 months ago by President Reagan after announcing that he would not seek re-election to the Senate from Texas. The American officials, who did not want to be identified, said Mr. Tower had submitted his resignation to the President. They said he had given personal reasons. Two of the officials said Mr. Town would be replaced by Ronald Lehman, a weapons specialist who has worked at the Pentagon and the National Security Council. An assistant in Mr. Tower’s office here said he was out of the country and could not be reached. She said that reports that he was resigning were not correct and that he would be back when the Geneva talks resume in May. Mr. Tower, a conservative Republican, served in the Senate for 24 years and was a champion of United States weapons strength and an opponent of the 1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with the Soviet Union.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev that it was unacceptable for the Kremlin to insist on a freeze on British nuclear arms as a condition for removing U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range nuclear weapons from Europe. Thatcher told Gorbachev in a letter delivered in Moscow that for the foreseeable future, nuclear weapons as a deterrent will continue to make an essential contribution to peace and stability. She was replying to Gorbachev’s call for eliminating all nuclear weapons by the year 2000.
The decision by the United States to force the Soviet missions to the United Nations to reduce their size has touched off a debate among experts in international law. In interviews, the experts agreed that the 1947 Headquarters Agreement between the United States and the United Nations Secretary General does not give the United States explicitly the right to determine the size of missions of member nations. Under the accord, the United States is obliged to issue a visa to any legitimate representative of any government assigned to the United Nations for purposes solely connected with United Nations activities, and is given the right to expel any individual who abuses such privileges. The issue on which experts disagree is whether abuse of privilege must be proved on a case-by-case basis. The United States contends that nothing in the agreement explicitly permits missions to grow infinitely, and that the three Soviet missions, whose staffs are larger than those of the next two largest missions combined, are too big. It has called for a reduction of Soviet staffs on the ground that mission members engage in espionage, and the large number of people involved places an undue burden on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is supposed to keep track of their activities.
The Soviet Embassy in Washington denied reports that KGB agent Vitaly S. Yurchenko, who returned home after three months in CIA custody, was executed. Embassy spokesman Boris Malakov said Yurchenko “is alive, in good health and working in Moscow.” Yurchenko returned home in November after charging that he was abducted in Rome and held by the CIA. U.S. officials have insisted that Yurchenko was a genuine defector who changed his mind.
In front of a string of bleak, shuttered shops in downtown Belfast, a group of men gathered to watch two cars burning. Before the automobiles were set ablaze, the drivers had been stopped, dragged out and told they were not going to work during a one-day general strike called by Northern Ireland’s Protestant leaders. The threat of the act was obvious and effective. “No one from this area would dare go to work today,” said Jack O’Hare, a passer-by. Across Northern Ireland last Monday, similar scenes of intimidation and vandalism were widespread, with factories attacked, office windows broken and stores looted. By police reckoning, there were more than 500 reports of intimidation and property damage, 670 roadblocks manned by Protestant militants and 57 arrests. Unionist leaders had billed the strike as a nonviolent display of the Protestant majority’s dissatisfaction with the British-Irish agreement. The agreement, signed in November, gives the Irish Republic a say in the affairs of Northern Ireland. But the strike turned out to be a violence-marred day that brought the unionists more enmity than sympathy and underlined the difficulty that Protestant political leaders face in trying to control their militant followers. Unionists favor continuing the union of Northern Ireland and Britain within the United Kingdom.
Concern in Sweden over privacy was stirred recently with the discovery that for 20 years a team of sociologists had been compiling detailed profiles of nearly 15,000 Swedes by systematically rummaging through computerized official records. Last week, after an intense debate on privacy and the responsibilities of researchers, the group was ordered by an official board to “deidentify” its files so that no names can ever been connected to the mass of personal information.
A Palestinian youth was shot and killed by Israeli troops after he refused to heed an order to stop and identify himself, a military spokesman said. The incident occurred at the Balata refugee camp on the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River. Soldiers said they found a knife on the body of the dead youth. Another youth fled the scene, dropping a full gasoline can, matches and rags, the spokesman said. The identity of the victim was not immediately made public.
Internal bickering among members of Israel’s Herut Party erupted into shouting and fistfights at a party convention. The fighting began when the convention refused to accredit 41 delegates supporting Housing Minister David Levy. Levy and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir are vying for the party leadership. Deputy Foreign Minister Ronnie Milo, a Shamir backer, took the rostrum and tried to speak. A delegate jumped on stage, shoved Milo and others, then knocked over the lectern and microphones. Ushers wrestled him to the floor, and order was eventually restored.
The body of a kidnapped Frenchman was reportedly shown in a photograph sent to a Western news agency in Beirut. Muslim extremists warned in an accompanying message that the lives of other French hostages depended on the speed with which the French Government responded to their demands. The photograph, delivered to a Western news agency, was accompanied by a statement in Arabic from the group, Islamic Holy War. The statement said the photo showed the body of Michel Seurat, a researcher who the group said last week had been “executed.” The statement said the French Government must respond to Islamic Holy War’s demands, which the statement said France “knows quite precisely and in detail.”
The Reagan Administration will notify Congress on Tuesday that it intends to sell Saudi Arabia $350 million worth of advanced missiles, White House officials said today, There are indications the proposal will face strong opposition on Capitol Hill. In Jerusalem, senior Israeli officials said that although the Government opposed the plan, it did not intend to mount a major campaign against the sale. The officials indicated that the reason was a desire to avoid a political fight with what is perceived to be a friendly Reagan Administration over a weapons package that is not viewed as threatening to Israel’s security. White House and State Department officials said they expected a difficult battle to prevent Congress from blocking the transfer of the missiles. The main argument being used by opponents is that Saudi Arabia has failed to support the United States in its Middle East peace initiatives and in fighting terrorism and should no longer be provided with whatever weapons it wants.
A high-level U.N. mediator resumed efforts to end the war in Afghanistan. Diego Cordovez left Pakistan for the Afghan capital of Kabul, conceding that it will be difficult to set up direct peace talks. Cordovez indicated that he will continue his efforts despite a failure to win concessions from Pakistan that would allow for direct talks in Geneva with the Soviet-installed Afghan government. Pakistan provides bases for thousands of Afghan guerrillas.
South Korea’s leading dissident, Kim Dae Jung, has again been placed under house arrest. The purpose, aides said, was to prevent him from attending a meeting of the political opposition aimed at promoting electoral reforms. Kim had been invited by the New Korea Democratic Party to a ceremony to open a Seoul office for the collection of petitions calling for direct presidential elections. A five-member U.S. delegation observing the campaign is scheduled to attend the ceremony today.
Several human rights organizations accused the South Korean Government yesterday of torturing two members of a political opposition group and denying them medical treatment. Two rights groups, the North American Coalition for Human Rights in Korea and the Urgent Campaign for Democracy in Korea, issued a statement in Washington after receiving letters from the detainees’ wives.
Documents found in the desk of the former Philippine President, Ferdinand E. Marcos, portray the final days of a desperate and harried man struggling to cling to office while still enmeshed in the minutiae of the power he had accumulated. Along with intelligence reports, orders to his generals and telegrams urging him to take strong action, Mr. Marcos’s desk was stuffed with requests for favors, promotions and loans, a prayer and a prediction by a member of a religious cult that Mr. Marcos would be the vehicle for the second coming of Christ. The documents offer a glimpse of events from within Malacanang Palace as the world outside crumbled around it during the crucial days in mid-February leading to a military revolt that drove Mr. Marcos from office. The contents of his desk include strategy suggestions for influencing President Reagan, a draft proclamation of a state of emergency that was not put into effect, and election tally sheets with notations that appear to indicate Mr. Marcos’s involvement in vote manipulation.
The Roman Catholic bishops of Haiti have begun a nationwide campaign to end the illiteracy of this poorest and least educated nation of the Western Hemisphere. Bishop Francois Gayot, the head of the Haitian Bishops’ Conference, said the aim of the campaign was to “make three million people literate in the next five years.” Before tens of thousands of people at an open-air rally, the Bishop appealed to other religious groups and all sectors of Haitian society to “spread the word” and cooperate in the literacy drive. Addressing the rich, he said, “You, who have so much, you can give a little.”
President Reagan addresses 200 private sector supporters of the U.S. aid to the Nicaraguan Democratic resistance. President Reagan, conceding that his proposed $100 million aid package for the Nicaraguan rebels faces an uphill battle in Congress, said today that the United States had a “moral obligation” to provide the assistance. Mr. Reagan, in a speech to about 200 conservative supporters, added that he believed Congressional support of his plan was growing. “This an uphill battle in which we are engaged, but we are making progress,” Mr. Reagan said. “You can sense that the tide is turning in favor of the democratic resistance,” referring to the insurgents fighting the Sandinista Government.
The Liberal Party claimed a victory today over the governing Conservative Party in elections in which leftist rebels got 1.5 percent of the vote. The police said a group that boycotted the elections, the Maoist-oriented People’s Liberation Army, killed nine policemen who were escorting election officials with the day’s ballots in Pueblo Nuevo. Other guerrillas, in the pro-Soviet Revolutionary Armed Forces, signed a truce and ran in the election in alliance with the Communist Party. With 95 percent of the ballots counted, the leftist alliance had 1.5 percent of almost 7 million votes cast in choosing a national assembly, legislatures for all 23 states, and municipal councils for 9,700 minor civil divisions. The Liberal Party candidate, Virgilio Barco, claimed a big victory for his party as candidates running under his banner gained 49 percent of the vote, to 38 percent for the Conservatives.
Chilean President Augusto Pinochet renewed sweeping emergency powers to arrest and exile opponents without trial. The decree extends for a further six months the “state of threat to internal peace,” making opponents liable for up to three weeks in custody, banishment within Chile or exile abroad without charge. Meanwhile, Edwin Harrington, a leading opposition journalist, said his son, 19, was arrested without charge and held in prison for a number of hours before being returned home.
South Africa’s political protest was reported today to have spilled into one of the nation’s so-called tribal homelands, Lebowa, where the police said they shot and killed seven black demonstrators over the weekend. The killings brought to 22 the number of people slain in political and tribal fighting since President P. W. Botha lifted the nation’s state-of-emergency decree on Friday, saying violence had ebbed sufficiently to lift the order. Brigadier Willem Beetge of the Lebowa police said six people were killed when police opened fire on a crowd of about 2,000 blacks who had marched on a police station at Motatema, 100 miles northeast of Pretoria, on Saturday. In another area of Lebowa, he said, a seventh person was shot dead when a crowd stoned a police vehicle.
The crew compartment and the remains of the Challenger astronauts were not intact when discovered, family members reported today, but one relative said officials believed some identifications were still possible. Another relative, Francis W. Scobee, father of the shuttle’s commander, Francis R. Scobee, said he had been told that some remains had already been brought to the surface for examination. Mr. Scobee said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had told him divers were planning to search for more remains. Dr. Marvin Resnik, father of another crew member, Dr. Judith A. Resnik, said the agency believed that some of the bodies could be identified despite decomposition. Carl McNair, whose son Dr. Ronald E. McNair died in the explosion January 28, said at a public appearance in New York today that he was told this morning by a representative of the space agency that the crew compartment had been ruptured. He said the remains were clearly visible to divers peering into the sunken compartment.
Whether the Challenger crew knew they were in danger was asked again after the discovery of the shuttle’s cabin. Among the questions are whether the five men and two women died instantly, without warning, in the fireball that engulfed the shuttle January 28, or whether they were aware in those final terrifying seconds that their ship was breaking apart. An astronaut, speaking on the condition that he not be identified, said today that as the shuttle ascended “an auditory and warning light may have come on, but by the time they could have done anything, the ship was disintegrating.” The stark visual impression was that everything was going smoothly until the spacecraft suddenly, and without warning, vaporized. This impression was reinforced by the absence of any frantic, last-minute transmissions from the shuttle.
President Reagan will meet Tuesday with two key members of Congress in an effort to stimulate action on a comprehensive immigration bill, according to White House officials. The legislators, Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming and Representative Peter W. Rodino Jr. of New Jersey, are the sponsors of major immigration bills in the Senate and the House. The session is notable because it is apparently the first example of active lobbying by Mr. Reagan on immigration legislation. In the past, he occasionally spoke in favor of such legislation, but he refrained from the intense personal appeals that characterized his lobbying on other issues such as revision of the tax system or aid to rebels in Nicaragua.
President Reagan meets with Jaquelin H. Hume, President of the Jaquelin Hume Foundation.
The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged that more fully trained air traffic controllers are needed, but insisted its work force is keeping the skies safe and that no further traffic restraints are required. “I see a healthy (air traffic control) system out there,” FAA Administrator Donald D. Engen told a group of senators who have joined a task force to examine air safety issues. FAA officials said that while some “flow control” measures are used to keep controllers from being overburdened with traffic, no further restrictions are planned.
Texas teachers took a test of their basic reading and writing skills that will be used by the state to determine their competency to teach. Principals, superintendents and other educators were also required to take the test to maintain their certification to teach in the state. Only minor protests were registered as about 210,000 Texas public school teachers took a mandatory skills test that will determine the future of their classroom careers. A state law adopted in 1984 requires that teachers score 70 or above on the test to retain their teaching certificates. If they fail the test twice they can no longer teach in Texas. Despite court challenges and threats of a boycott, the testing appeared to go smoothly.
Pesticide makers back legislation to strengthen the nation’s pesticide law. In an unusual alliance, they joined environmental and consumer groups that seek a stronger law. The proposal would hasten health and safety testing of pesticides already in use and impose a fee on companies that make them to help pay for the tests. Under the agreement, the pesticide industry would pay $75 million to $80 million to help the Environmental Protection Agency test pesticides now in existence.
Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode said that he did not believe he would or should be charged with crimes for his handling of a violent clash last May 13 with the radical cult MOVE in which police bombed a row house, killing 11 of the group’s members and igniting a blaze that destroyed two city blocks. “I do not feel I will be indicted; I do not feel there is a reason to do so,” said Goode, speaking at his first news conference since a special investigating panel last week accused the mayor and aides of “gross negligence” and suggested that a grand jury investigate the incident further.
A cancer clinic in the Bahamas, closed last summer for dispensing AIDS-contaminated drugs that may have infected as many as 1,000 patients, has been allowed to reopen, a New York state representative announced. The Freeport, Grand Bahamas, clinic, which was closed July 17 on advice of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, was authorized by the Bahamian government to resume treatment of cancer patients March 3, Rep. Guy V. Molinari said. Dr. Gregory Curt of the National Cancer Institute said he had found no evidence of the AIDS virus in samples analyzed.
A former New York Parking Violations Bureau official pleaded guilty in federal court to two criminal counts in exchange for testimony against others suspected in a bribery scandal rocking the city government. Geoffrey Lindenauer, the former PVB deputy director and the only official charged in the scandal, pleaded guilty to racketeering and mail fraud. In exchange for a lighter sentence, Lindenauer agreed to tell authorities all he knows about corruption among city officials.
More than 100 striking meatpackers and supporters were arrested after they padlocked Hormel’s corporate headquarters, in Austin, Minnesota, sent the keys to the governor’s office and linked arms in what the police chief called “mass civil disobedience.” Production at Hormel’s flagship meat plant, where the workers went on strike August 17, was not interrupted. Police Chief Don Hoffman said about 100 people were arrested when they linked arms, chanting and singing “We shall not be moved,” and refused police orders to disperse.
A federal judge refused today to block the execution of one of two condemned killers in Texas scheduled to die early Wednesday and a state judge considered a request to stop the second execution. Federal District Judge John Singleton refused to halt the execution of Charles Bass, 30 years old, despite assertions that Mr. Bass received inadequate legal aid at his trial. In the other case, an appeal was filed today with State District Judge Charles Dickerson for Roger DeGarmo, who had said he would “raise hell” if anyone tried to stop his death. He apparently changed his mind after a visit last week by relatives, an attorney said.
Ryan White, the 14-year-old AIDS victim in Kokomo, Indiana, set up a home laboratory today so that his seventh grade science teacher could instruct him on dissecting a grasshopper in the youth’s first home teaching session since he was banned from school in July. Ryan’s classmates at Western Middle School were to watch on a computer screen, but the principal refused to discuss the session. Other school officials, although unable to confirm whether the 45-minute class took place, said the seventh grade science teacher decided to go to Ryan’s home because that was the best way to teach dissection. Except for one day last month, Ryan has been officially barred from attending classes since July 1985.
A United States Naval Academy midshipman facing dismissal for suspected cocaine use filed suit today, charging the Navy’s drug-testing process violated his constitutional rights. The midshipman, Jeff Bellistri, 23 years old, has denied he ever used cocaine and said he will fight efforts by the Navy to dismiss him from the academy two months before graduation. Mr. Bellistri’s suit, filed in Federal District Court, said the Navy had violated his constitutional rights to due process and counsel when it convicted him solely on the basis of the urinalysis test and refused to allow witnesses to testify in his defense before two review boards.
An earthquake shook buildings in Santa Barbara, California today, startling residents and causing gas leaks. But the authorities said no major damage or injuries were reported from the quake, which struck at 7:33 AM, or the mild aftershocks that rumbled off the coastal community 80 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The quake measured 4.4 on the Richter scale, putting it in the category of a moderate earthquake.
A B-1B bomber, its movable wings stuck in a swept-back position for high-speed flight and one of its four engines shut down, made an emergency landing at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert — at 276 mph, officials said. The aircraft, on a training flight from Dyess Air Force Base near Abilene, Texas, traveled cross-country on only three engines. One was shut down during the flight when an engine warning light came on, Air Force spokesman Don Haley said. There were no injuries among the five crew members and the plane, which was unarmed, was not damaged, Haley said.
Tornadoes and winds up to 90 miles an hour raked Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio yesterday, killing at least five people and injuring as many as 70. The winds also cut electricity to thousands of people and destroyed dozens of airplanes at Cincinnati’s airport. The tornadoes and winds were spawned by a cold front that rapidly moved across the Ohio Valley and met warm, moist air, said Pete Reynolds, a meteorologist at the Severe Storms Center in Kansas City. The Weather Service said several tornadoes touched down across central Indiana and east-central Indiana and reported wind gusts of 90 mph in Knightstown, Ind. At least one tornado touched down in Ohio, but “the damage here at Greater Cincinnati International Airport was a straight-line storm,” said Bob Belesky of the weather service. “We haven’t been able to confirm any tornadoes in the northern Kentucky and southern Ohio area.”
The worlds of New York and Washington, the cities that Jacob K. Javits so often shuttled between in his 24 years in the Senate, came together yesterday to praise him as a man of principle, a striver for social justice and, in his final years, a man of striking courage. “Few of us have done as much to make America equal to its dream,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, one of six Senate colleagues of Senator Javits who spoke at the spare, but often emotional funeral service in the Central Synagogue, at Lexington Avenue and 55th Street in New York. Senator Javits, a liberal New York Republican who emerged from a boyhood on the Lower East Side to shape important laws on civil rights, labor and foreign affairs, died of a heart attack Friday in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 81 years old and had been suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative nerve ailment also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, after the Yankee ballplayer who suffered from it.
Ray Milland died in Torrance, California. A star in many movies, Mr. Milland won an Academy Award and many other honors for his best-known role, the portrayal of an alcoholic in the 1945 movie “The Lost Weekend.” He was 81 years old.
Marvelous Marvin Hagler retained his undisputed world middleweight title tonight when he knocked out John (The Beast) Mugabi at 1 minute 29 seconds of the 11th round. It was a demanding fight for the champion, but Hagler withstood the punishing blows of Mugabi and wore him down with his own crisp shots. The end came with Hagler’s right eye swollen and the champion coming forward to finish a series of combinations with two big right hands to Mugabi’s head. The blows sent Mugabi backward onto the canvas. As Referee Mills Lane gave him the count, the loser glanced forlornly toward Hagler, standing across the ring in a neutral corner. Mugabi, who is from Kampala, Uganda, and now lives in Tampa, Florida, never did make it to his feet.
Ernie Lombardi, the National League MVP in 1938, and Bobby Doerr, a 9-time American League All-Star, are elected to the Hall of Fame by the Special Veterans Committee.
Prices rose moderately yesterday on Wall Street as the stock market, already too rich for many investors’ tastes, failed to respond to further declines in interest rates. “The market ran ahead of the fundamentals — interest rates, the economy — that sort of thing,” said Richard Schmidt, research director of Advest Inc. “I think we are going to see some indecision for a while.” The Dow Jones industrial average, which had fallen under the 1,700 level at the end of February, lifted itself above the milestone again. It closed at 1,702.95 for a 3.12-point gain. But the Dow was well short of the record 1,713.99 close on February 27.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1702.95 (+3.12)
Born:
Andrew Hawkins, NFL wide receiver (Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns), in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Tony Pike, NFL quarterback (Carolina Panthers), in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Sergei Shirokov, Russian NHL right wing (Vancouver Canucks), in Ozyory, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Christian Hanson, NHL center and right wing (Toronto Maple Leafs), in Venetia, Pennsylvania.
JC de Vera, Filipino actor (“La Vida Lena”, “Bakit ‘di mo sabihin?”), in Manila, Philippines.
Died:
Ray Milland, 81, Welsh actor (“The Lost Weekend”-Academy Award, 1945).
History Diaries 