The United States, despite an urgent plea from Congress to call off the test, today detonated its first nuclear device since the Soviet Union extended its test ban. The underground blast, code-named Glencoe, occurred at 11:15 AM Eastern standard time after a 15-minute delay at the Yucca Flats test site in the Nevada desert. The official Soviet press agency Tass immediately denounced the test as a “new militaristic action” by Washington but did not say whether Moscow would break its self-imposed test ban. Pete Martinez, a State Department spokesman, said nuclear tests were needed as long as the United States and its allies relied mainly on offensive nuclear weapons. The Associated Press reported. “Under existing conditions,” Mr. Martinez said, “neither a moratorium nor a comprehensive test ban would enhance the cause of security, stability or peace.” Jim Boyer, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, which oversees nuclear weapon tests, said from the Nevada control center that the device was exploded in a shaft 2,000 feet deep and had a yield of 20 to 150 kilotons. One kiloton has the explosive force of 1,000 tons of TNT.
Premier Jacques Chirac will call a vote of confidence at the opening session of France’s newly elected Parliament, a government spokesman said. Chirac, named to head a new conservative government last week, will call for the vote-the first test of unity among the coalition of rightist and center-right parties-when the next session of the National Assembly opens April 2, the spokesman said. It will be Chirac’s first appearance in Parliament since the coalition won a narrow victory in legislative elections March 16.
President Francois Mitterrand held his first Cabinet meeting today with the leaders of a new conservative Government made up of his political opponents. The meeting, which was described as “cool” by commentators here, was the first visible act of the power-sharing arrangement, known as cohabitation, between Mr. Mitterrand, a Socialist, and members of the rightist parties that won a narrow victory in parliamentary elections a week ago. The meeting was held as usual in a Baroque room in the presidential palace, where Mr. Mitterrand sat at the large oval ministerial table this morning. He was opposite Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, the leader of the largest conservative political party, and surrounded by the 37 ministers and secretaries of state who make up the Government named by Mr. Chirac on Thursday.
Italian prosecutors have asked for indictments against 13 people for the hijacking last fall of the Achille Lauro cruise ship, and among them is the Palestinian guerrilla leader Mohammed Abbas, judicial sources said today. In court papers filed in Genoa on Friday, the charges made against the 13 people ranged from criminal association to complicity in murder. A 69-year-old New Yorker, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot dead during the hijacking. The prosecutors’ action is the first step toward holding a trial in the Italian judicial system. An investigating magistrate will now review the accusations, and if he finds them substantiated, he can order a trial.
Michele Sindona died of cyanide poisoning. One of Italy’s principal financiers until he was charged with fraud and murder, Mr. Sindona collapsed in his prison cell Thursday.
Leonid M. Zamyatin, the Soviet Union’s chief press spokesman, is soon to be named Ambassador to Britain, diplomats say. Mr. Zamyatin, who is 64 years old, has been the chief of the International Information Department in the Central Committee’s Secretariat. Although he is a career diplomat — he joined the foreign service in 1946 — Western diplomats view the move from the center of power in Moscow to the London post as a demotion.
Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Francisco Fernandez Ordonez said Spain will grant full diplomatic status to the Palestine Liberation Organization. “It (the PLO) is not a state as such, but it has all those characteristics,” Ordonez said upon his return from Tunis, Tunisia, where he met with Arab League Secretary General Chedli Klibi. “This means they would have some of the same rights as similar organizations…” Diplomats said the move was an effort to improve relations with Arab countries that protested Spain’s establishment of diplomatic ties with Israel on January 17. Ordonez told reporters before he left Tunis that Madrid supports “self-determination and creation of an independent state for the Palestinian people.”
The struggle by OPEC to achieve higher oil prices moved into the political arena today, as the Iranian Oil Minister reiterated accusations that the United States sought to force crude oil prices downward to crack the oil-producing cartel “because it is an organization belonging to the third world.” The Iranian minister, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, told reporters that the United States had encouraged some independent oil-producing nations, such as Britain, to overproduce, thus forcing oil prices downward to cause OPEC’s revenues “to be decreased and to decline.” Though Mr. Aghazadeh did not mention Saudi Arabia, Iran has accused the Saudis in the past of also doing Washington’s work by overproducing crude oil to depress prices and to discipline radical OPEC members such as Iran and Libya, which have consistently undercut official prices to gain wider market shares. In what appeared to be a veiled threat to the Saudis, Mr. Aghazadeh said that if the conference failed to reach an acceptable agreement for curtailing production and lifting prices “then we would reveal the positions of the member countries one by one.” Mr. Aghazadeh said the United States also sought to benefit from lower oil prices by imposing “import fees” on oil and oil products, at the expense of OPEC and other oil-producing nations.
A Palestinian faction claimed that it killed four captured Israeli soldiers and lost four of its guerrillas in a cross-border raid into northern Israel. The claim was contained in a communique signed by the Palestine National Liberation Army-Southern Area Command, which appeared to be a new organization. The communique did not say when the attack took place, but said the guerrillas’ target was Zarit, a farming settlement in northern Israel. Israeli military sources said they knew of no attempted raid in that area.
A Lebanese man killed in the bombing of a shopping arcade on Paris’ Champs Elysees on Thursday had ties to a Lebanese terrorist group and probably planted the explosives that killed him, French police said. Nabil Dagher, 27, was a friend of jailed terrorist suspect Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, whose release has been demanded by a group that claimed responsibility for the bombing, the state-run France-Inter radio reported. Besides Dagher, another Lebanese man, who police said was not suspected in the bombing, was killed and 28 people were injured.
At least 20 people were reported wounded today in militia clashes in central Beirut and in battles that raged from the southern suburbs to the city’s port in the north. Local radios said at least 18 people, including 4 children, were rushed to hospitals in East Beirut, the predominantly Christian sector, after gun battles flared along the 10-mile front. A Christian radio station reported that the children had been hit by shell fragments while playing in a public park. Security sources in the Muslim sector said two people were wounded there as mortar bombs struck residential areas and militiamen traded heavy machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades across the Green Line, which divides the Christian and Moslem sectors.
A senior American diplomat, apparently without authorization and contrary to Reagan Administration policy, held a secret meeting with Libyan officials in early January, according to Administration officials. The diplomat was identified as William A. Wilson, Ambassador to the Vatican, and officials said the meeting occurred in Tripoli only days after terrorist attacks at the Vienna and Rome airports on December 27 in which 20 people were killed. Libya is widely believed to have been involved in the attacks. White House and State Department officials who confirmed the meeting had taken place insisted that Mr. Wilson had no authority to undertake such a mission, and that senior Administration officials did not know about it until after the State Department checked.
Sikhs and Hindus clashed today in a riot-torn Punjab city, and prominent Hindu residents asked that the army be sent in, an Indian news agency reported. Sikhs burned down at least 20 huts, two people received gunshot wounds and five others were beaten in the Hindu-dominated city of Batala, the news agency, United News of India, said. About 200 prominent Hindu residents of Batala sent a cable to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi today seeking assistance from the army.
Union Carbide will pay $350 million in a tentative settlement of over tens of billions of dollars in damage claims resulting from the leak from its pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, in December 1984. The leak killed more than 2,000 people and injured 200,000. The settlement, which is subject to final negotiations and the approval of a United States judge, was reached last week with lawyers for victims of the gas leak. It covers everyone harmed by the disaster whether or not they have filed suit. The $350 million is half what legal and financial analysts expected it to be.
The Government of Bangladesh, in moves to accommodate opposition parties, removed all army commanders from their civilian jobs today and set a new date for a parliamentary election. An official announcement said that the offices of the four zonal Martial Law Administrators, headed by major generals, had been shut down and that the generals had resumed military duties. It also said that more than 150 military courts across the country were being abolished and that all pending cases were being transferred to civilian courts. The parliamentary election, scheduled for April 26, will now be held on May 7, it added. President H. M. Ershad announced Friday that he was prepared to dismantle the martial law apparatus and set a new election date to attract opposition parties to take part in elections that they had threatened to boycott.
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Midway (CV-41) collided with a South Korean fishing boat in the Yellow Sea yesterday, damaging the 45-foot fishing boat but leaving the 52,000-ton warship unscathed.
Thousands of striking Philippine employees today blockaded the gates of the large United States naval and air bases in a widening pay dispute. Several stabbings, stone-throwing and other violent incidents were reported late Friday and early today, soon after strikers set up barricades of logs, rocks and metal grilles outside the Subic Bay Naval Base, 50 miles northwest of Manila. Five Filipinos were said to have suffered knife wounds, and at least two American marines were believed to have been badly roughed up in brief battles between pickets and Americans trying to return to the installation after an evening in the adjoining town of Olongapo Strikers also set up picket lines around Clark Air Base, near Subic, and around several smaller American military installations, but were said to be peaceful.
With a crisp salute to her troops, President Corazon C. Aquino exercised the power of Commander in Chief today with an appeal to “our brothers and sisters” in the Communist insurgency to join the nation in reconciliation. “I mean to wage a campaign for peace,” the President declared. “I wish to persuade those insurgents who went to the hills because of despair rather than ideology to return now because there is hope.” Her appeal to the guerrilla fighters, estimated to number 20,000 and holding substantial provincial territory, did not yet offer a specific proposal of amnesty. But it did include a stated willingness to fight them if necessary.
Protesters in Haiti chanting “Down with the Government!” set up roadblocks north of the capital today as pressure intensified on the military and civilian officials who came to power when the Duvalier regime fell six weeks ago. Responding to demands that officials close to the former ruler be removed from the six-member ruling council, Lieut. Gen. Henri Namphy of the army announced Friday that three members with especially close ties to the Duvaliers had resigned. That left the council with three members. In the last four days this military-civilian council, which General Namphy heads, has been shaken by a series of fresh street confrontations, in which at least seven people have been killed. The taxi and minibus drivers have gone on strike. Commercial flights by Eastern Air Lines, American Airlines and Air France have been suspended and the daily curfew has been extended, going into effect at 8 PM.
Elliott Abrams, U.S. assistant secretary for Latin American affairs, made an unannounced tour of Central America and met with the presidents of Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica, U.S. Embassy officials said in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. An embassy spokesman said President Reagan asked Abrams to make the trip after the House last week defeated a proposed $100 million in aid to the Nicaraguan contras. Honduran sources said the Reagan Administration believes that El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica are fearful of the military power of the Sandinista government and would move closer to Nicaragua if they thought the United States was abandoning the Nicaraguan rebels.
President Reagan denounced critics of his proposed aid to Nicaraguan rebels, and said they engaged in “scurrilous” attacks and outright falsehoods in suggesting that his policy was leading the United States toward a war in Latin America. In an interview with The New York Times, he displayed rare public anger and his voice shook with emotion as he commented on the House debate before his request for aid was rejected on Thursday. Although the President declined to be specific, he appeared to be talking about the Democratic leadership of the House, including Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. The President said opponents “hungry for victory” had made “flat declarations” that his policy was aimed at sending troops against Nicaragua. “I am not impugning the motives at all,” he said, “but some of the opponents of our program engaged in some of the most scurrilous, personal attacks against me, for example, the most dishonest use of distortions and outright falsehoods that I have heard in a legislative battle.”
Exploratory talks between southern Sudanese rebels and backers of Khartoum’s military government appear to have collapsed, and sources close to both sides said today that there was no possibility of a cease-fire. The sources said the meeting, which had been expected to last at least a week, would end Sunday. The rebel leader, John Garang, made an uncompromising opening statement today opposing the Khartoum Government’s plan to hold elections next month and accused the authorities of stepping up the war in the largely Christian and animist south. He then left the talks and returned to his base in the southern Sudan, the sources said. Mr. Garang and his Sudan People’s Liberation Army are fighting for regional autonomy. In Khartoum, the government postponed elections today in 37 of the 68 constituencies in the south, where security problems have prevented a sufficient number of people from registering.
The South African Supreme Court, in a rebuff to the Government, today invalidated severe restrictions imposed on a black activist. The court in the southern coastal city of Port Elizabeth accepted the argument of the activist, Mkhuseli Jack, that the banning order was void because Law and Order Minister Louis Le Grange had failed to disclose his reason for imposing it, or even to explain why the reasons had to remain confidential. Anti-apartheid campaigners said the ruling was a victory, and Mr. Jack, who is 28 years old, ripped up the banning order in front of hundreds of cheering supporters, saying: “It’s a major victory. I’m glad Louis Le Grange has been exposed for his abuse of the security laws.”
From the slow, painful recovery of debris from the ocean floor near Cape Canaveral, a picture is emerging of what happened to the Challenger’s crew compartment after the explosion that ripped the space shuttle apart. So far, a single debris field of undisclosed size, in about 100 feet of water 17 miles northeast of here, has yielded not only human remains, which are undergoing analysis and identification by military pathologists, but also a wide array of recognizable wreckage. The fact that so much of the debris from the crew compartment, as well as remains of the seven astronauts, has been found at a single spot on the ocean floor strongly suggests that at least some large piece of the orbiter’s forward section, where the crew sat, emerged from the fireball and then plunged nearly 10 miles to the ocean and broke apart on impact. Commander James R. Buckingham of the Navy, director of the salvage operations, said in an interview today that several large pieces of wreckage from the orbiter had been located within an oval area measuring five by seven miles, indicating the spaceship itself was blown apart in midair and “came down in a small number of pieces.”
A big majority of Americans favor continuing the space shuttle program although many are not sure that NASA can avoid further fatal accidents, Gallup Poll results showed. Of those responding to the survey, conducted since the loss of the shuttle Challenger and its crew of seven, 80% said the United States should continue the flights and 38% expressed a “great deal” of confidence in NASA, but 19% said they had little or no faith in the space agency. In the same poll, 69% said civilians should participate in future space missions.
The President and First Lady attend the annual Gridiron Club dinner.
President Reagan, saying he “felt very bad” about Jimmy Carter’s recent criticisms of him, has praised the former President’s record on national defense and wants to tell him so face-to-face. “I felt that he misunderstood my position,” Mr. Reagan said. “I was disappointed by his reaction and I thought about calling him, but decided I would just wait and talk to him about it when I see him again.” Mr. Reagan made his comments in a telephone call to the Washington bureau of The New York Times early Friday evening, hours after the President was interviewed by three Times reporters.
President Reagan says he intends to involve himself deeply in this year’s Congressional elections, traveling widely to speak in behalf of Republican candidates. In an interview Friday with The New York Times, Mr. Reagan said he planned “to do everything I can do on behalf of our candidates and everything that I’m asked to do.” The President’s personal popularity is counted as one of the principal assets of the Republican Party, which, while far stronger than a decade ago, still has not established itself in a dominant national position. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are at stake in November, along with 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate. The Democrats are widely expected to have little difficulty in retaining control of the House, where they have a 71-seat margin. But the race for the Senate is expected to be close; the Democrats need to gain only four seats to win a majority there.
A large majority of American physicists doubt President Reagan’s proposed “Star Wars” space shield could effectively protect the nation against a Soviet nuclear attack, according to a new poll. The survey of 549 American physicists, who belong to the 37,000-member American Physical Society, was commissioned by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent, nonprofit organization. When asked whether “Star Wars” could defend the U.S. population as a whole, 67% of the physicists said it was very unlikely. Sixty-two percent said it was very likely that the Soviets would deploy countermeasures that would render “Star Wars” ineffective.
The General Accounting Office says it has found numerous irregularities in the personnel practices, travel records and financial management of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. The office is to present its findings to Congress Tuesday. The chairman of the commission, Clarence M. Pendleton Jr., has not read the report, but he denounced it in advance as “a politically motivated effort to discredit me and the work of the commission.” The authors of the report rejected that characterization.
Air safety surveillance is stretched thin by increases in air traffic and depleted ranks of federal inspectors, investigators, air controllers and technicians, according to aviation professionals and Congressional investigators. The aviation experts trace the problem to cost-cutting efforts both in the government and in the deregulated industry as new airlines and tempting low fares lure growing millions of travelers to air travel.
Two West Philadelphia families whose homes were destroyed by fire when police bombed the headquarters of the MOVE political group last May moved into new row houses in their old neighborhood. They became the first to occupy city-sponsored replacements for the 61 houses lost in the fire, which left 11 persons dead and 250 homeless. The rebuilding is costing the city about $135,000 for each three-story, three-bedroom house. The contractor said most of the other houses will be completed by April 15.
All employees of the Police Department in Newark, New Jersey, have been ordered to undergo random testing for illegal drugs, and anyone who tests positive will be discharged or forced to resign, the city’s police chief said. Police Director Charles Knox said the department will begin testing all 1,100 employees for drugs within a few weeks. The move follows the arrest last week of an 18-year veteran of the police force charged with selling cocaine while on duty at police headquarters. The testing will be done randomly and without notice, Knox said, and will include all high-ranking police officials.
A fraternity and a sorority have been suspended at the University of Southern California because members chanted anti-Semitic slogans and painted “Jew Week” on a sidewalk outside a predominantly Jewish fraternity, university officials said. Kappa Sigma, the fraternity, and the Pi Beta Phi sorority were temporarily banned from campus activities or signing up new members pending an investigation, the university president, James Zumberge, said Friday. Some members of Kappa Sigma and Pi Beta Phi were reportedly angered over their loss in a fraternity week competition to Sigma Alpha Mu, the predominantly Jewish fraternity. The incident occurred March 13. Kappa Sigma and Pi Beta Phi officials have apologized to Sigma Alpha Mu, university officials said.
Animal rights activists attempting to shut down Macy’s to protest the sale of furs scuffled in New York City with furious shoppers who strong-armed their way into the department store. After nearly an hour of confrontation with several dozen protesters, Macy’s officials locked the front doors, and police held open side entrance. Officers issued 58 summonses for disorderly conduct and arrested one person for resisting arrest. Members of a group called TransSpecies Unlimited said they had targeted Macy’s because it is one of the largest department store chains selling furs and because the store refused to discuss the issue.
Five members of an Oklahoma family drowned after a small boat they were in capsized on a large pond, and the body of the last of the victims was recovered today. No one who drowned was wearing a life jacket, said Charles Blunt of the State Highway Patrol. There was one survivor, Enoch Good, 10 years old. He was rescued by his grandfather, Carl H. Good, who launched a boat when he saw the six in the water. The dead included the boy’s father, Carl Joe Good, 32, three of the younger Mr. Good’s other children and his brother, Daniel, 22. They had gone for a ride Friday on the pond in a 12-foot aluminum boat. The bodies of Carl and Daniel Good, and Olen, 2, and Rebecca, 1, were recovered Friday. The body of Tina, 8, was found today.
The California biotechnology company that gained approval for the world’s first field test of a genetically engineered farm chemical has notified the Federal Environmental Protection Agency that it will delay the test until it repeats a battery of disputed safety studies. The company, Advanced Genetic Sciences, informed the E.P.A. of its decision in a letter mailed two weeks after the agency began an investigation of the company’s action in four months of outdoor experiments with the chemical in 1985. The E.P.A. later said the experiments violated Federal policies regarding the release of genetically engineered organisms. The letter was summarized in a legal motion filed late Friday by Justice Department lawyers who were seeking to delay an April 6 court hearing on the field test. The Justice Department is defending the E.P.A. in a suit filed by the Foundation on Economic Trends, a Washington-based activist group opposed to the test.
Palisades Park, with its panoramic view of Santa Monica Bay, is one of California’s scenic treasures, a favorite place for tourists and residents to stroll at sunset. Stretching two miles along high cliffs overlooking the Pacific, the park has become home to strollers, joggers, picnickers and tourists who come to Santa Monica for the sun, the mild temperatures and the glorious vistas. For the same reason, Santa Monica, one of the state’s most affluent communities, has become home to hundreds of homeless people. With the majestic park dotted by towering palms and the immaculate white beaches, “it’s a nice place to rough it,” says James Keane, the Police Chief. This city of 90,000 people, which is often referred to as “the People’s Republic of Santa Monica” because of its vigorous social conscience, has long had a strong commitment to helping the homeless. But their numbers here have climbed from a bare handful six years ago to about 1,000 now, city officials say. And the city’s policies, which include a decision by the City Attorney not to arrest or prosecute for benign panhandling, have created a furor among the large population of elderly people, who now fear using city parks, and among merchants and restaurateurs, who depend on the tourist trade.
The Dade County police in Miami are seeking a rapist who has attacked 45 women in south Florida since 1981 in what has become one of the most intensive investigations in county history. No serial rapist has previously been able to evade arrest for so long, according to Sgt. David Simmons, the detective who is leading the 50 officers assigned to the case. “We’ve never seen anything quite like this in our area,” he said. The police are hoping a recent break in the rapist’s pattern will soon allow them to solve the case.
American schoolchildren are in no better shape physically than they were a decade ago, and in some cases they are significantly weaker, a Presidential council on fitness reports. A survey of 18,857 public school pupils found a continuing “low level of performance” in key areas such as running, jumping, flexibility and strength, the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports said Thursday. “Those statistics are alarming,” George Allen, the former coach of the Washington Redskins who is the council’s chairman, said at a news conference. “The conclusion to me is that America is in last place in physical fitness.”
A cold snap gripped the South for the second consecutive day. Killing frost advanced into the Gulf states, and low-temperature records were broken in many cities. Vacationing college students wrapped themselves in beach towels against chilly Atlantic winds on the beaches of central Florida, where the mercury barely reached 60 degrees at midday. Overnight lows in the eastern half of the nation ranged from near zero in New England to the 50s in southern Florida. The low in Miami Beach was 50, a record for the date. Night temperatures dipped into the teens in Alabama, where an Auburn University horticulturist described damage to peach, pear and plum orchards as fair to moderate.
“On My Own” single released by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald (Billboard Song of the Year 1986).
Heart’s “These Dreams” single goes #1.
Karin Enke-Kania (East Germany) skates a ladies’ world record 1500m (1:59.30).
Andrea Ehrig skates ladies world record 5 km (7:20.99).
Ice Pairs World Championship at Geneva won by Ekaterina Gordeeva & Sergei Grinkov (USSR).
Ladies’ Figure Skating Championship in Geneva won by Debi Thomas (USA).
Born:
Dexter Fowler, MLB centerfielder (World Series Champions-Cubs, 2016; All Star, 2016; Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels), in Atlanta, Georgia.
Died:
Mark Dinning, 52, American singer (“Teen Angel”), dies of a heart attack.
Charles Starrett, 82, American actor (“The Mask of Fu Manchu”, “Bonanza Town”).
Derek Farr, 74, British actor (“8 O’Clock Walk”, “Doctor at Large”), from cancer.
Harriette Arnow, 77, American novelist and historian (“Dollmaker”).
History Diaries 