Moscow extended its test halt for nuclear weapons in reply to an appeal from six countries. Mikhail S. Gorbachev said the Soviet moratorium, which was to have expired March 31, would continue as long as the United States held off testing. The Soviet leader made the announcement in response to an appeal by a group of six countries — Argentina, Greece, India, Mexico, Sweden and Tanzania — that the Soviet Union and the United States conduct no more tests until the next summit meeting. Mr. Gorbachev declined to commit himself to a halt until his next meeting with President Reagan, for which no date has been set. “In response to your appeal,” Mr. Gorbachev said, “we state that the Soviet Union shall not conduct nuclear explosions after March 31 either -until the United States carries out its first nuclear explosion.’ ” Mr. Gorbachev reiterated his readiness to submit a test ban to on-site verification, including inspection of areas where nuclear blasts are suspected.
In August, Moscow first announced that its halt on testing would expire December 31 unless the United States joined in. The United States rejected the idea on the ground that it still had to catch up with the Soviet Union in weapons development and needed more testing. In Washington, Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said Thursday that the American position against a test ban had not changed. On January 15, in the context of a broad plan to eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2000, Mr. Gorbachev extended the test halt until March 31. But Mr. Gorbachev said at the time that the Soviet Union “cannot display unilateral restraint with regard to nuclear tests indefinitely.” The only type of nuclear testing that has been conducted in recent years by the two countries is underground testing. They stopped testing in the air, under water and in outer space under the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. Western diplomats viewed Mr. Gorbachev’s new extension of the test halt as part of a series of arms control initiatives intended to build international pressure on the United States.
A senior Administration official said today that the United States would present detailed proposals on the verification of medium-range missile limits when the Geneva arms talks resume in May. The official, Paul H. Nitze, who is an arms adviser, made the disclosure in a speech to the Foreign Service Institute in which he offered a generally negative assessment of the arms talks. He said the verification procedures to be suggested by the United States would involve on-site inspection and exchange of information. United States negotiators presented general ideas on verification at the end of the last round of talks. But a detailed proposal on verification has not yet been worked out. Mr. Nitze also discussed the United States’ latest proposal on medium-range weapons, which calls for the elimination of American and Soviet medium-range weapons in three phases over a three-year period. He conceded that the American proposal would require the Soviet Union to make larger cuts than the United States in the first phase. The proposal calls for each side to reduce its missile force in Europe to 140 by the end of the first year. Under the plan, the Soviet Union would have to cut its force from 243 to 140 in Europe and make proportionate cuts in its missile force in Asia. The United States had only 136 medium-range missiles deployed in Europe as of the end of last year. Mr. Nitze said the plan was designed so that the Soviet Union would not maintain an advantage over the United States at any point in the process.
The United States said today that it would not consult with Moscow on the size of the three Soviet missions to the United Nations and that it stood by its order reducing the mission size. Herbert S. Okun, the American deputy chief delegate, said in a meeting of the Host Country Committee that the order for a cutback over a two-year period from 275 to 170 staff members was “reasonable.” Richard C. Hottelet, American spokesman, said in an interview: “There is not going to be any negotiation on the substance of this decision. It is U.S. policy and it is legal.”
The President will oppose despots of the anti-Communist right as well as the pro-Soviet left, Mr. Reagan said in a policy statement set to be made public today. The new policy differs in emphasis from the one enunciated by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, former chief American delegate to the United Nations, which held that “traditional authoritarian” governments were “less repressive,” more susceptible to change and better for American interests than Marxist-style dictators were. Mr. Reagan’s statement still calls leftist dictatorships the greater and “unique” threat to world peace. But his intention is take advantage of his recent role in helping to remove right-wing dictators in the Philippines and Haiti and to blunt charges that he has a double standard on human rights.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz today endorsed the use of “moderate force” by the United States to abduct and bring before American courts suspects in terrorist attacks charged with killing or wounding Americans abroad. This was the first time that a senior Administration official had given public backing to an idea that has picked up support in Congress in recent months in the aftermath of terrorist attacks against Americans overseas and the difficulty of apprehending them for trial in the United States. Mr. Shultz, testifying before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Foreign Operations, said, “We need to be working on the web of law here and working with others in the world to tell terrorists they have no place to hide and will be prosecuted.”
Police announced the first arrest in the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. The suspect’s attorneys said the man had been “at and around” the scene when Palme was shot on a Stockholm street February 28 and bore a “certain resemblance” to a composite portrait of the man thought to be the killer. The attorneys described the unidentified suspect, 35, as an anti-Communist Swede with no record of criminal acts or violence. Attorney Henning Sjostrom said the man had a “negative political attitude toward Palme,” but he added that many Swedes share that feeling. The suspect was picked up Wednesday night after a search of his home.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 1986 Crafoord Prize of $140,000 to geophysicists Gerald J. Wasserburg of Caltech and Claude Allegre of the University of Paris for their research in isotope geology. The two men have contributed to methods “offering new opportunities to study the innards of the Earth,” the academy said.
An Israeli Herut Party convention collapsed in chaos, raising major doubts about the future of Israel’s main right-wing party and its leader, Yitzhak Shamir. The convention in Tel Aviv was abruptly adjourned a day ahead of schedule when backers of Ariel Sharon and David Levy, who are allies, forced Mr. Shamir from the rostrum after staging a political coup against the party leader.
France’s unofficial mediator in that nation’s Lebanese hostage crisis left Beirut for Damascus, Syria, after reporting some progress in his efforts to win the freedom of eight French captives taken hostage by Muslim militants. Razah Raad, a Lebanese-born heart specialist, said that after his Damascus visit, he will return to France.
France missed an opportunity to arrest a Lebanese Shiite who has been accused of masterminding the hijacking last year of a Trans World Airlines jetliner, American officials said. The officials said France was asked to detain and prosecute the Lebanese Shiite, Imad Mughniyah, late last year after American intelligence officials learned that he was planning to enter France. They said they believed the terrorist suspect was spotted by French agents, but not arrested. “This was an opportunity lost,” an American official said.
Manila cited a Swiss bank account totaling $800 million held by Ferdinand E. Marcos, according to an official of the Government panel seeking to recover the former President’s secret wealth. Ramon Diaz, one of the five members of the commission, declined to say what Swiss bank the money was in or how the Government had learned of the account’s existence. But another commission member, Mary C. Bautista, said the commission actually had information on more than one account held by Mr. Marcos in Switzerland. “We don’t want to say anything more because they are very powerful, and we don’t want to let them know how much we know,” Mrs. Bautista said. The $800 million account is by far the largest asset of Mr. Marcos and his wife, Imelda, yet made public. The commission is seeking to regain five buildings in New York worth an estimated $350 million that it asserts are secretly owned by the Marcoses.
The fall of Ferdinand E. Marcos has spawned or intensified several investigations of his personal and governmental dealings, raising the potential question of whether Mr. Marcos himself could face prosecution, Administration officials said today. The officials said Mr. Marcos was given no immunity from either civil or criminal charges when he fled the Philippines and entered this country. But they said the issue posed difficult foreign policy issues, since legal action against him could hinder the ability of the United States to work for the departure of dictators from other countries in the future. “If we’re faced with a situation like the Philippines, what kind of options are going to be open to us if we prosecute Marcos?” one official asked.
Defense Department officials said tonight that President Reagan was prepared to use military advisers to train rebels fighting the Nicaraguan Government if Congress approved the $100 million in aid the President has requested for the insurgents. It was the first indication that the Administration was ready to give direct assistance to the forces known as contras that are fighting the leftist Sandinista Government in Managua. The officials emphasized, however, that the United States advisers would not be permitted to enter Nicaragua. They said the advisers would remain at training bases outside of Nicaragua, meaning Honduras.
The leader of Colombia’s most powerful guerrilla group, the leftist April 19 Movement, was killed by police in an apartment in a middle-class Bogota neighborhood when he tried to resist arrest, officers said. Alvaro Fayad Delgado was fatally shot “in a confrontation” after officers had surrounded the building, General Gustavo Gonzales, Bogota police commander, said. Fayad, a civil engineer in his mid-40s, took control of the group also known as M-19 in February, 1985. It is the most active of four guerrilla groups in Colombia.
Ecuador declared a state of emergency after a renegade general took over an air base for the second time in a week. General Frank Vargas Pazos, former air force commander, called on his supporters to march on the government palace and restore “a true social democracy.” The general took over Mariscal Sucre air base in the capital of Quito, claiming that officials broke an agreement that led to his surrender at another air base on Tuesday. Under the agreement, two top military leaders resigned, but Vargas said they also should have been arrested.
Pope John Paul II told Brazilian bishops at a special meeting today that they should not try to “substitute for politicians” and that some forms of liberation theology needed to be “cleansed of elements that might adulterate it.” The meeting with 21 members of the Brazilian hierarchy marks one of the clearest efforts by the Vatican in recent years to bring a local church under firmer control. Brazil’s bishops have been outspoken advocates of social change. Though divided between more progressive and more traditionalist elements, the Brazilian prelates have generally supported the theology of liberation, which emphasizes the church’s commitment to the poor. The Vatican argues that some forms of the theology come dangerously close to Marxism. In opening the meeting, the Pope emphasized that although the encounter here was something “new,” it did not mark “an emergency” in the Brazilian church. But he made clear his impatience with left-wing clerical activism.
President Reagan has ordered that up to $10 million in emergency military equipment and other aid be sent to assist Chad in its war with Libyan-backed rebels, the State Department said. The equipment, released in response to a request by Chad, will be used to resupply the forces of President Hissen Habre after clashes along the 16th parallel, which divides the rebel-held north and the government-held south. The equipment, to be taken from Defense Department stocks, will include transport aircraft, vehicles, weapons, ammunition and medical supplies.
Lawmakers clashed today over a bill that would block President Reagan’s program of secretly aiding the rebel forces fighting the Angolan Government. At a rare public hearing conducted by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Representative Henry J. Hyde, Republican of Illinois, objected to the bill on the ground that it would “tie the hands of the President” in an area of the world where “the stakes are enormously high.” Representative Robert W. Kastenmeier, Democrat of Wisconsin, said the bill was important because it preserves Congressional control over important foreign policy decisions. Foreign policy, he added, “belongs to the people.” The panel’s chairman, Representative Lee H. Hamilton, is author of the bill that would bar Angolan aid until the Administration openly acknowledges its policy and Congress passes a resolution endorsing that policy. The Indiana Democrat expressed outrage earlier this year when the Reagan Administration went ahead with a plan to send $15 million in covert aid to the Angolan rebels, even though the intelligence committees in both houses advised against the move.
South African police fired birdshot and tear gas to break up a crowd of about 5,000 mourners at a funeral for riot victims, forcing pallbearers to drop all four coffins on the street and flee, witnesses said. Police had ordered that no more than 100 people attend the service. At least one coffin was damaged in the clash in Khuma township near Stilfontein, about 90 miles west of Johannesburg, reporters at the scene said. The four victims had been shot by police in rioting three weeks ago in Khuma.
The European spacecraft Giotto, badly battered but still surviving man’s last, bold attempt in this century to unlock the secrets of Halley’s comet, plunged to within 335 miles of the the comet’s icy nucleus this morning. But a bombardment of dust particles interrupted the spacecraft’s transmission of data to Earth two seconds before the historic closest approach ever to the comet. The spinning, half-ton spacecraft stopped transmitting data at 1:10.58 AM, said Rudiger Reinhard, the Giotto project scientist, just before it was to have made its closest pass to the heart of the mysterious comet, which voyages to the inner solar system every 76 years. Still, scientists were jubilant. Twenty-five minutes after the television images had vanished from viewing screens in the control center here, they reported that they had regained contact with the spacecraft. However, its camera appeared to have been disabled by the dust, which struck the probe at speeds 50 times that of a bullet, or 155,000 miles an hour.
Moscow launched two cosmonauts, Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyov, aboard Soyuz T-15 toward a rendezvous with the new space station Mir and, in an uncommon action, showed the takeoff live on national television. Due to the pressure of launching Mir in time for the 27th Communist Party Congress, mission planners were left without the newer Soyuz-TM spacecraft or any of the planned modules to launch to the station at first. It was decided to launch an older Soyuz-T as Soyuz T-15 on a dual mission to both Mir and Salyut 7. Soyuz T-15 was both the first expedition to Mir and the last to Salyut 7. American experts described the Mir as a “major advance” over the experimental Salyut stations that the Soviet Union has used for nearly 15 years in demonstrating the ability of humans to live and work for long periods in orbit, up to nine months. Soviet officials themselves have said that the Mir marks “the beginning of a transition from research and experiments to large-scale production activities in outer space.”
Federal health officials recommended yesterday that the millions of Americans at high risk of contracting AIDS should undergo periodic blood tests to determine if they have become infected with the virus. In their most sweeping recommendations to date to slow the spread of the fatal ailment, Federal health officials urged health care facilities to routinely offer the screening test, which detects antibodies to the AIDS virus in the blood, as well as counseling on ways to avoid spreading the disease to others. Dr. Walter R. Dowdle, the AIDS coordinator for the Public Health Service, said that in making the recommendation, he was “keenly aware” of “the crucial need to insure confidentiality for high-risk persons and to protect their medical records from unauthorized disclosure.” He defined these groups of people as having an increased risk of infection with the virus that can cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome:
— Homosexual and bisexual men.
- Present or past intravenous drug abusers.
- People with signs or symptoms compatible with AIDS or a less serious disease, AIDS-related complex.
- People born in Haiti and countries in Central Africa where heterosexual transmission is believed to play a major role in the spread of AIDS. In citing Haiti, Dr. Dowdle included a group that has not, in recent months, been routinely mentioned among the high-risk groups.
- Male or female prostitutes.
- Sex partners of infected people or of people at increased risk.
- Hemophiliacs who have received blood-clotting factor products.
- Newborn children of infected mothers.
To date, only a minority of infected individuals have developed the fatal condition or related diseases. But experts assume that all infected individuals can transmit the virus through sexual intercourse and exchanges of blood. Civil liberties advocates have repeatedly expressed concern over the potential misuse of the blood test results to discriminate against homosexuals and others in employment, insurance and housing.
All four flight recorders and some of the five computers aboard the space shuttle Challenger have been recovered by divers, sources close to the disaster inquiry said. Although submerged in salt water for six weeks, the instruments could provide valuable information about the moments before and after the Challenger blew up January 28. All seven astronauts were lost in the explosion, 73 seconds into the flight. The sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be named, said the recorders and computers were brought ashore Wednesday night along with more remains of the crew, parts of the flight deck, two unused space suits and other debris. The recovered monitors could provide information on such things as temperatures, acceleration and structural stresses in the aborted mission. They were being kept in cool water until they could be cleaned and dried under controlled temperature and humidity conditions.
Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said today that efforts to identify the remains of the seven Challenger astronauts would be conducted at a secluded, high-technology space agency laboratory here. Since the first remains were recovered last weekend, the work had been done at Patrick Air Force Base about 25 miles south of the space center. On Wednesday night the Navy recovery ship that had found the crew compartment of the Challenger slipped quietly into port, and with solemn ceremony containers from the ship were transferred to shore. As honor guards stood watch, sailors wearing dress uniforms unloaded the material that had been lifted from the crew cabin of the Challenger, and about 30 minutes later a convoy of ambulances sped off, lights flashing.
Rejecting President Reagan’s priorities, the Republican who heads the Senate Budget Committee today proposed a 1987 budget that gives the military an increase only to make up for inflation and includes $16.2 billion in revenue increases. At the same time, the Democratic-controlled House, in a strictly partisan vote, rejected Mr. Reagan’s 1987 budget 312 to 12. Twelve Republicans voted yes, 74 voted no and 77 voted present, in protest of the vote. Both the Administration and the Republican leadership in the House criticized the vote as being staged by the Democrats for the purpose of President-bashing.
President Reagan congratulates the top ten boys and girls Washington area high school basketball players.
President Reagan and Vice President Bush enjoy lunch together.
President Reagan will name Dr. William L. Roper, now his special assistant for health policy, to become head of the $93-billion agency that runs the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, a White House official said. An industry source said an announcement is expected today. Roper, a 36-year-old physician, will take over the Health Care Financing Administration, a branch of the Health and Human Services Department.
The Federal Aviation Administration has begun action to levy a record multimillion-dollar fine against Eastern Airlines for violating safety rules, agency officials say. One of the most serious charges is that the airline conducted numerous flights with two Boeing 727 planes using a landing gear component that was supposed to have been removed from the fleet, industry sources said. A landing gear on one of the planes eventually collapsed in a landing, the sources said, but no one was injured. The majority of the charges, however, have to do with the airline’s reported failure to keep proper records on maintenance, including compliance with F.A.A. safety directives, the agency sources said.
Two retired air safety inspectors of the Federal Aviation Administration accused superiors of covering up findings of safety and training violations at Continental Airlines. The former inspectors told a Senate panel that a critical report they prepared in 1984 was withheld and altered to put “a more favorable light” on the airline, which was then going through a bitter pilots’ strike and bankruptcy reorganization. Harry Langdon, a veteran inspector with the agency’s San Francisco office who quit last year, testified at a congressional hearing that a 1984 FAA investigation disclosed serious shortcomings at Continental. Langdon said he had written up a lengthy report on Continental outlining his findings and recommendations, which subsequently were “severely watered down.”
Trans World Airlines plans to resume flying to all 86 cities on its schedule this week as 1,750 newly trained flight attendants and 1,500 other company employees replace striking workers, the airline said. TWA will fly 431 of its 581 scheduled flights on Saturday, a company statement said. The addition of the two cities means TWA will serve, to some degree, all 63 U.S. cities and 23 overseas destinations on its regular schedule for the first time since 5,700 members of the International Federation of Flight Attendants walked off their jobs March 7, the airline said.
Laws limiting car dealers’ numbers in 36 states cost consumers $3.2 billion last year, according to a Federal Trade Commission study. A separate study found that similar restrictions on new providers of home health care were also causing consumers to spend more, but not on the scale of the extra costs to car buyers. The states’ car dealership restrictions allow existing dealers to block the establishment of competitors selling the same make of automobile in their vicinity. The trade commission study said this benefited the existing dealer to the detriment of the buyer through noncompetitive pricing and was also harmful to the manufacturer because the higher prices reduced sales.
The Army has lost millions of cartridges and some explosives but it and the other armed services have no idea how much equipment is stolen or lost because of flaws in bookkeeping and management, the General Accounting Office said. Senator Pete Wilson, Republican of California, who requested the report, said he believed total losses “could be in the billions of dollars.” Because of chronic flaws in military bookkeeping and management, the armed services have no idea how much military equipment is stolen or lost, the General Accounting Office said today. The accounting office, an arm of Congress, said it could not estimate with precision the cost resulting from waste, theft, loss and misplaced equipment.
Senator Barry Goldwater, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has denounced as “pure unadulterated politics” the Navy’s plan to deploy its expanding fleet in new home ports, according to a letter made public today. In the letter dated March 7 to the Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Senator Goldwater, Republican from Arizona, said he did not want his committee “to take any positive action” on the home-port program. “The issue of homeporting for Navy ships is soon to come up before the Senate, and quite frankly, I’m opposed to it,” Mr. Goldwater wrote.
Dr. Fred Davison, stung by the decision of the State Board of Regents to postpone renewing his contract, today resigned the presidency of the troubled University of Georgia, an office he has held for 19 years. Dr. Davison’s decision is the latest development in a dispute over preferential academic treatment for athletes at the university, a matter that the Regents say could now threaten the university’s accreditation. His resignation, effective July 1, comes just a month after Dr. Jan Kemp, a former English teacher in a remedial instruction program at Georgia, won a $2.57 million jury verdict after she sued two university officials, charging that she had been demoted and then dismissed for protesting favored treatment for athletes in the program. The success of her suit has led to several concurrent investigations of the program. Dr. Davison’s letter of resignation suggested that the Regents had made a political decision on his contract.
Brown University officials said today that there were no plans to discipline students implicated in a prostitution ring, saying the university regarded the women as “possible victims, not criminals.” “There are strong indications extortion or coercion were involved and that the women were not motivated to do this for the money,” said Robert Reichley, vice president for university relations at Brown. He declined to specify what form the coercion might have taken. He said the two 21-year-old seniors who have been charged with loitering for prostitution, a misdemeanor, are still enrolled and that as far as he knew they were attending whatever classes they had scheduled today.
Donald R. Manes died last night of what the New York City Police Department said appeared to have been a self-inflicted stab wound to the heart. Mr. Manes had stepped down last month as the Borough President and Democratic leader of Queens as the city’s municipal corruption scandal widened.
A District of Columbia courier for a company that transcribes congressional hearings was sentenced to a minimum of three years in prison for espionage. U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell meted out a sentence of three to nine years to Randy Miles Jeffries, 26, who pleaded guilty on January 24 to delivering national defense documents to a person not entitled to receive them. He must serve three years before becoming eligible for parole. “I am not a spy,” Jeffries said. “I do have a problem with drugs. . . . I wish I can take it back but I can’t.”
Meatpackers on strike against the Geo. A. Hormel & Company plant in Austin, Minn., have approved a resolution calling for a reconciliation with their parent union and authorizing a more conciliatory contract offer to the company. Leaders of Local P-9 said, however that they would not abandon key bargaining demands or dampen their criticism of officers of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The measure was approved by a vote of 345 to 305 in balloting Tuesday and Wednesday, a union source said. The resolution calls for a meeting between leaders of the local and the international union and instructs local leaders to prepare a new contract offer. Charles Nyberg, senior vice president of Hormel, said Wednesday that the company was willing to resume contract talks but added that Hormel had hired a full complement of workers since the plant reopened January 13 and had no jobs now for workers remaining on strike, which began August 17.
The Great Northern Paper Company, citing problems with state regulatory agencies, said today that it was abandoning a plan to build a $100 million dam that was opposed by environmentalists and rafting enthusiasts. “The drain on our resources of pursuing this project is more than we can continue to support,” said Robert F. Bartlett, president of the company. The surprise announcement came three days after the State Senate rejected a bill that would have given the company the water-quality certification it needed to build the dam on the West Branch of the Penobscot River.
A Dartmouth College panel today found 17 students guilty of trying to block the removal of a shanty erected on the campus green in protest of South Africa’s policies of racial separation, but imposed no penalties. In releasing its ruling after two days of hearings, the panel said a “misunderstanding” between protesters and administrators was a key factor in deciding not to punish the students. They were arrested by the Hanover police on Feb. 11 after forming a human chain around the shanty to block its removal by workers. But Dartmouth’s president, David T. McLaughlin, withdrew criminal trespass charges against the protesters and submitted their cases to the Committee on Standards, composed of students and faculty and administrative members.
Participants in the cross-country “great peace march” held pep rallies today in an effort to lift sagging morale and met to discuss ways to raise $100,000 for an extra water truck and other supplies needed for the march to abolish nuclear weapons. A lack of money and threatening skies forced the march to stall for a third consecutive day in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Hikers said more than 200 people had quit in the past three days. But march organizers said only “several dozens” had quit, leaving the official count at 900. Nearly 1,200 people started the trek on March 1 from Los Angeles, about 120 miles west of the campsite in Barstow, California.
Thunderstorms with winds up to 100 mph battered the Southeast, injuring two people who were struck by lightning and ripping the Confederate flag and a section of copper from the South Carolina Statehouse dome. A second day’s soaking of Alabama’s parched woodlands allowed officials to cancel a fire alert after a 2 ½-month siege of forest blazes that destroyed timber worth $2 million. In Georgia, a 9-year-old girl and a schoolteacher were hospitalized when they were struck by lightning near Macon.
12th People’s Choice Awards: Sylvester Stallone and Meryl Streep win (Motion Picture) and Bill Cosby and Linda Evans win (TV).
She had to retake the lead from a resurgent wayward competitor, but Susan Butcher, a 30-year-old kennel operator, swept across the finish line first in the Anchorage-to-Nome Iditarod Sled Dog Race early yesterday in Alaska. She set a speed record for the 14-year-old event in becoming the second woman to win the 1,158-mile race (Libby Riddles won last year) over some of the world’s coldest, windiest and most desolate terrain.
Trading activity slowed a bit on Wall Street yesterday, but the stock market continued its journey into record territory despite some newfound nervousness about the direction of interest rates and oil prices. “People are getting the feeling that even the weak bond market can’t stop the stock market,” said Newton Zinder of E. F. Hutton & Company. Bond prices were sluggish after the Government reported that retail sales in February, while down slightly, were not as disappointing as had been expected. The Dow Jones industrial average, which rose a near-record 43.10 points Tuesday, gained another 8.26 points, to a record 1,753.71. The blue-chip indicator fell slightly because of profit taking on Wednesday.
Microsoft has its initial public offering and lists on the NASDAQ.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1753.71 (+8.26)
Born:
Chiaki Kyan, Japanese gravure idol, in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, Japan.
Kris Chucko, Canadian NHL left wing (Calgary Flames), in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
Died:
Álvaro Fayad Delgado, 39, Colombian communist guerilla leader (M-19).
History Diaries 