Revised U.S. intelligence figures on Soviet military growth will not cause President Reagan to modify his request for $313 billion in defense spending, a senior Administration official said. The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency reported to Congress that Soviet military spending growth was 2% a year since 1974 and not the 4% previously estimated. The official said the gist of the intelligence report was that Soviet defense spending growth is “flattening, but flattening at a very high rate… considerably ahead of us.”
The chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee called today for an end to covert United States support for insurgents in Afghanistan and Angola. The statement, by Representative Lee Hamilton, Democrat of Indiana, came after it was disclosed over the weekend that the Administration had decided to send portable antiaircraft missiles to rebels in the two countries. Representative Hamilton called for an open aid program that could be voted on by the entire Congress.
Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Josef Stalin, apparently wants to return to the United States, only 16 months after moving back to her homeland with her daughter, but her chances are slim, Soviet journalist Viktor Louis said in Moscow. Officials of the United States Embassy in Moscow confirmed that Miss Alliluyeva, who is Stalin’s daughter, had met with officials in the consular section, but declined to say more. Louis, often a source for official information, said the daughter, Olga Peters, has a better chance to leave because she is a U.S. citizen. Louis said Western reports that the daughter was already abroad were incorrect. He said that both Alliluyeva and her daughter have been in contact with the U.S. Embassy, apparently to seek visas. Louis said that Alliluyeva renounced her Soviet citizenship once, “and I am not sure she will be allowed to do it again.”
Policemen in West Germany used water cannons and tear gas today against protesters at the planned site of a nuclear reprocessing plant. A police spokesman said water cannon were trained on protesters throwing missiles over the nine-foot security fence surrounding the Wackersdorf site near the border with Czechoslovakia. The police deployed 3,000 men in riot gear, 40 water-cannon trucks and 300 other vehicles at the construction site after clashes Sunday. Organizers said more than 100,000 people had come by bus, car and special train to stop the project. The police put the number at 30,000.
The United Nations Security Council continued debate today on the fighting last week between Libya and the United States, but adjourned without voting. The Soviet Union circulated a draft resolution that would have the Council “firmly condemn the act of armed aggression” against Libya. Neither the Soviet draft, which asks for unspecified “appropriate compensation for the loss of lives and damage to property,” nor a milder text prepared by nations professing nonalignment could obtain the nine votes needed to be adopted. No date was set for the next meeting.
Part of Hampton Court was destroyed by a fire. Queen Elizabeth and other members of the royal family rushed to inspect the wreckage caused by the blaze, which left one person dead and millions of dollars in damage to Henry VIII’s palace by the Thames, one of Britain’s most historic buildings. The Queen appeared upset when she saw the damage, and was heard to describe it as “dreadful.” “The fire is a great tragedy,” Richard Tracey, Under Secretary of State for the Environment, said after arriving at the palace, 15 miles southwest of London. “This building is one of the jewels of our heritage.”
A Protestant protest rally that began in this rural town early today to the sound of flutes ended late this afternoon in gunfire. The police said 49 people were injured, including 13 officers. The police said they had fired 125 plastic bullets at the hundreds of stone-throwing rioters. They would not say whether the three people seriously injured today had been hit by the bullets.
At least five people were hospitalized in Turin, Italy over the weekend after drinking wine containing excessive amounts of methyl alcohol, hospital officials said today. Eleven Italians have died in the last two weeks and 25 others have been hospitalized with similar symptoms. Two of those hospitalized in the Turin area over the weekend were in comas and the others were suffering from stomach pains and blurred vision. The police have impounded adulterated wine in various parts of the country and have made several arrests. France, West Germany and Austria have taken steps to keep out adulterated Italian wines, and last week Agriculture Minister Filippo Pandolfi introduced new rules against exporting wine with excessive amounts of methyl alcohol.
Israeli troops killed a Palestinian youth and wounded three others today while quelling several Palestinian nationalist demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, an army spokesman said. In the al-Bureij refugee quarter in Gaza, a Palestinian teenager was shot and killed by security forces after he hurled a homemade firebomb at a passing Israeli patrol, military sources said. The firebomb missed the patrol and hit the wall of a school. The boy was shot when he failed to heed an Israeli warning to stop trying to run away, the military sources added.
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres left for a four-day trip to the United States, where he will urge officials to help bolster the Mideast’s economy. He will attend ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the World Jewish Congress and will meet with Vice President George Bush and Secretary of State George P. Shultz. Peres has proposed a 10-year economic aid program for the Mideast, including Arab countries. He reportedly fears that the Arabs face great instability as oil prices fall.
Before the fall of the Shah in 1979, Israel was involved in a multibillion-dollar project to modify advanced, surface-to-surface missiles for sale to Iran, according to documents said to have been left in Tehran by Israeli diplomats. The documents reveal that the Israelis told the Iranians that the missiles could be fitted with nuclear warheads, although this possibility was not pursued. The two sides agreed that if Iran wanted a nuclear ability, this would pose a problem with the Americans. The Israelis left shortly before the 1979 revolution. The Israeli papers, in English, were published in paperback by the Iranians who seized the American Embassy in November 1979 and who have published more than 50 volumes of secret documents found there. The Israeli-Iranian project, code-named “Flower,” was one of six oil-for-arms contracts signed in April 1977 in Tehran by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and Shimon Peres, then the Israeli Defense Minister.
The Vietnamese government plans to turn over to American military officials in Hanoi on April 10 the remains of 21 U.S. servicemen found in Vietnam, the Pentagon announced. The remains will be flown to the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii and then returned to next of kin. Hanoi will also permit one or two U.S. experts to attend an excavation at the crash site near Hanoi of a U.S. military plane, believed to be a fighter or attack jet, to see if any crew remains can be found, a Pentagon statement said.
In a statement that could signal a tougher stance toward demonstrators, the national police chief today criticized opposition party leaders for failing to restrain students who clashed with policemen Sunday in Kwangju. A police statement denounced the students, who blocked traffic, burned placards, and hurled rocks at policemen. The police said they had taken 69 people into custody. The police chief, Park Bae Gun, said opposition leaders had broken a promise to keep public order by failing to restrain the students. Opposition leaders denied today that they had incited the crowd and said the rally had been held peacefully, with disturbances caused by a small group after the rally had ended.
Homemade rockets were fired from a van outside Crown Prince Akihito’s residence and a nearby guest house that will be used in the Tokyo economic summit in May. One of the rockets failed to explode, and another was blocked by a net thrown over the van after police became suspicious. Police said one man was arrested and another fled. A timing ignition device and a launcher capable of firing rockets were found in the unoccupied van. The crown prince and his family were away, and no one claimed responsibility for the attack.
Ferdinand E. Marcos, in a letter and tape-recorded message addressed to the people of the Philippines, again denied accusations of corruption today and urged his followers to “remain united so that we will see each other again.” “We do not intend to abandon our friends and loyal supporters, limited as our capabilities are now,” he said. “God willing, we will see each other again. You can be sure that we will see each other again.”
The Philippine Government has now identified many Marcos family assets, but it still lacks crucial documentation on the biggest holdings and faces a long and arduous legal battle as it turns to efforts to actually recover the wealth, according to United States and Philippine officials. Ferdinand E. Marcos’s attorney, Stanton D. Anderson, said in an interview that the charges and claims against the former President would be challenged at every legal opportunity. “My instructions are to vigorously defend the President’s rights in any forum,” Mr. Anderson said. “There are a number of defenses, starting with the adequacy of service and going up to his immunity as head of state.” He added that Mr. Marcos had not seen 1,500 documents that he and his party brought to Hawaii.
If an enemy ever sweeps down to invade North America, it will have to contend with the Ikkidluak brothers and their bolt-action rifles. Iola and Lucassie Ikkidluak live in Lake Harbour, an Eskimo settlement on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. They wear the red baseball caps and armbands of the Canadian Rangers, a force of mostly indigenous reservists who have been issued Lee-Enfield rifles dating back to World War II and told to keep their eyes open for anything suspicious. Canada maintains no combat forces in its vast north, though it has an electronic surveillance base on Ellesmere Island and a northern military headquarters at Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories. The Special Service Force, a quick-reaction army brigade, has the mission of repelling a land invasion of Canada, but it is based down in Ontario.
A Canadian Senator, Jacques Hebert, ended a hunger strike today that he began 22 days ago to protest the cancellation of a Government-funded youth program he helped found a decade ago. Mr. Hebert, 62 years old, lost 21 pounds during his fast. He slept in the foyer outside the Senate Chamber. Mr. Hebert, a Quebec Liberal Party Senator, called off his fast after a committee of private citizens was formed over the weekend to look for ways to maintain the Katimavik Community Works Program for Youth.
167 people die when a Mexicana Airlines Boeing 727 crashes in a remote mountainous region of Mexico. Mexicana de Aviación Flight 940 was a scheduled international flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles with stopovers in Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlán. There were no reports of survivors in the Mexicana jet, which had been bound for Los Angeles. Officials said the Boeing 727 crashed after the pilot radioed ground controllers that the plane had an emergency. An inquiry was opened by the Mexican government with additional assistance from the National Transportation Safety Board. The investigation concluded that the crash was caused by an explosion that originated in the wheel well. The wheel had overheated during the take-off run as it had suffered high drag on the ground, which was caused by faulty brakes. Fire ensued as the explosion ignited the fuel and hydraulic liquids, causing the fire to quickly grow. The aircraft suffered structural failure, due to the severity of the fire causing a large area of the fuselage to melt, and crashed onto the side of the mountain.
A U.S. congressional delegation began a fact-finding tour of Haiti. Its leader, District of Columbia delegate Walter E. Fauntroy, said, “We believe Haiti should not have to go it alone.” Fauntroy added that he and the other congressmen will meet with a cross-section of Haitians to discuss a return to democratic processes after almost three decades of dictatorship.
The United States has added $10 million to its food aid for Haiti to help meet emergency needs, it was announced today. M. Peter McPherson, administrator of the Agency for International Development, said at a news conference that the additional aid would bring the total aid program to $60 million for the current fiscal year. Mr. McPherson, who recently returned from Haiti, said the “opportunities are very substantial” for development in that country.
The Vatican has suspended an order of “penitential silence” imposed 11 months ago on a Brazilian theologian. The theologian, Friar Leonardo Boff, had been banned from editing, writing or speaking in public for an unspecified period after charges that he had committed serious doctrinal errors. Friar Boff indicated that he thought the Vatican’s action was a gesture of good will toward Brazil’s Roman Catholic bishops. He said he had received the news “as an Easter present.”
A Mozambican Air Force plane crashed and burst into flames on takeoff, killing 44 people, Mozambique’s official press agency reported today. The dead included a founder of the rebel movement that successfully fought Portuguese colonial rule.
After 19 months of violence that has claimed around 1,400 lives, some of South Africa’s black activists say they are seeking to complement their campaign against white rule with alternatives to official control at the local level. The strategy does not imply expectations of an immediate black takeover of the Government, but seems focused more on creating activist bodies to replace white, official control of black schools and towns. In townships in the restive Eastern Cape, for instance, the activists say, the violent destruction of Government-sponsored black community councils has been followed by the creation of what are called “people’s committees” charged with running the affairs of separate streets and areas and with spreading a radical political message. The committees, run by militant blacks, seem still to be shadowy organizations, but they fit a pattern.
President Reagan will seek legislation to make significant changes in liability insurance coverage, including possibly imposing limits on jury awards and attorney’s fees, White House officials said today. The officials said the legislation, to be drafted over the next several weeks, would be largely based on a series of recommendations by an interagency committee that presented a study March 17 to Mr. Reagan. As juries have awarded increasingly high damages in liability cases and attorney’s fees have risen apace, premiums have soared when insurance is available at all. Cities and doctors, in particular, have complained that insurance is increasingly difficult to get, and the committee’s recommendations are designed to change that situation.
The President and First Lady enjoy a horseback ride together at the ranch in California.
President Reagan spends most of the day chopping firewood and clearing brush.
The Farm Belt crisis does not seem to have generated the sort of political revolt against the Reagan Administration that would help the Democrats win control of the Senate this year. Often in the past, including 1948, an economic collapse in the region has prompted farmers to desert the Republican Party.
Education, rehabilitation and job programs for veterans will be cut by as much as 13% to meet the deficit goals of the Gramm-Rudman law, the Veterans Administration said. It said a single veteran who is a full-time student will lose $33 a month and a single veteran getting vocational rehabilitation aid will lose $41 a month, effective today. The VA said checks for service-connected disability or injury will not be affected.
Congress is running out of postage money and members may use up their franking privilege in the middle of this election year, Senator Charles McC. Mathias Jr. (R-Maryland) warned. Mathias, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said that at the current rate of mailing, the Senate may run out of postage funds in 30 days and the House is not far behind. He said Congress underestimated the amount it needed for postage when it appropriated $100 million for fiscal 1986, and noted that more than $4 million was cut from that amount under Gramm-Rudman requirements.
Arguing that “Big Brother” should not have power to regulate “sexual intimacies in the privacy of the home,” a Harvard Law School professor urged the Supreme Court today to rule that the Constitution protects private homosexual and heterosexual acts between consenting adults. But an assistant attorney general of Georgia said such a ruling would undermine state efforts to maintain “a decent and moral society.” He said it would also open a Pandora’s box of efforts to extend privacy rights to polygamy, homosexual marriage, incest, adultery, prostitution, bigamy and possession of narcotics. The arguments came in the case of Michael Hardwick, who was arrested in his bedroom while having sexual relations with another man. The Atlanta police said they had gone to his home to arrest him for failing to pay a fine for drinking in public.
The Supreme Court agreed today to decide whether state environmental regulators may impose permit requirements on private companies mining on Federal forest land. The case is an appeal of a Federal appellate ruling that Federal law pre-empted California’s power to require a private limestone quarry in the Los Padres National Forest, near Big Sur, to obtain a state permit. The appellate ruling, if upheld, could hinder state environmental regulation of mining on 140 million acres of Federal land, much of it in the West. California argued in its appeal that the open pit limestone quarry it seeks to regulate, conducted with Federal approval, could blemish “the heart of the scenic, nationally renowned Big Sur Coast, one of the most sensitive and valued portions of California’s coastline.”
The Department of Housing and Urban Development today directed local housing authorities to end all Federal housing assistance for illegal aliens and to evict them if they cannot pay unsubsidized rents. The department issued a final rule prohibiting the payment of such assistance to people who are not United States citizens or legal aliens. The purpose, it said, is “to reserve scarce housing assistance resources for persons with the most legitimate claim, namely, citizens and other persons lawfully present in the United States.” Similar restrictions, it said, are already in effect for recipients of certain other types of assistance such as food stamps.
Inspections of sanitary conditions aboard cruise ships will be discontinued by the Government on April 30, the Centers for Disease Control has announced. The decision was protested by the New York State agency that requested the Government inspections after an outbreak of illness at sea in 1975.
Union workers at the only plant producing nuclear fuel for Navy submarines ended a bitter 10 ½-month strike by overwhelmingly approving a new three-year contract that contains a no-strike clause, officials say. Larry Abel of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, which represents the employees, said full production should resume at the plant within three weeks. The new contract was approved, 275 to 65, in a vote Sunday. Mr. Abel said workers will start reporting to their jobs on Wednesday, with more to follow, after getting their annual physicals.
Plans for two waste-treating plants are being fought by North Carolina residents who say that the plants are dangerous and that their rural area was chosen for them because of its poverty and lack of political connections. The prospective builders, US Ecology Inc. and the GSX Services Corporation, deny the charges and say the area provides excellent facilities.
Guards with bloodhounds searched the bleak Owyhee River back country for Claude Dallas, 36, a self-styled mountain man who cut his way out of the Idaho State Penitentiary, where he was serving a 30-year sentence for gunning down two game wardens in 1981. Dallas slipped out of the prison after dark on Easter Sunday, cutting his way through two fences and disappearing into the surrounding desert outside Boise. Authorities in Wyoming, Washington and Montana were alerted in case Dallas headed for Canada. “It’s hard to tell if he’s going to the hills — the place he knows best — or if he’s going to leave the country,” said Warden Arvon Arave. “Of all the people I hate to lose, he’s at the top of the list.”
Federal District Judge Walter L. Nixon Jr. was sentenced to five years in prison for perjury today. Judge Nixon, the second judge in the 197-year history of the Federal bench to be convicted in office, was found guilty February 9 of lying to a special Federal grand jury in July 1983 when he denied discussing a drug-smuggling case involving a businessman’s son with a prosecutor and with the businessman. Today, the 57-year-old judge told Federal District Judge James Meridith, “You are now being called upon to sentence an innocent man.” Judge Meredith denied a new trial for Judge Nixon, who could have been sentenced for up to 10 years in prison and fined $20,000. He remains on inactive status as chief judge of Mississippi’s Southern District pending appeal. Judge Meredith, denying a prosecution motion to jail Judge Nixon immediately, also allowed him to remain free pending appeal. The other Federal judge convicted, was Harry E. Claiborne of Reno, found guilty of tax evasion, who is appealing.
New York City announced that it will expand its early-education program to accommodate all 4-year-olds, a move that will make it the first city with universal preschool classes. Mayor Edward I. Koch said public preschools in September will begin admitting children from low-income families, and that the expansion will be complete within four years. He cited a commission’s finding that children with preschool backgrounds perform better throughout their schooling and later in life.
By some measures, these may not seem the best of times for Marion S. Barry Jr., the Mayor of the District of Columbia. His closest political and personal lieutenant, former Deputy Mayor Ivanhoe Donaldson, is serving a term in Federal prison for stealing from the city. Another top city official has resigned under a cloud. Last week, a Federal judge here took over trusteeship of the city’s overcrowded jails after faulting Mr. Barry as failing to provide court-ordered remedies. But Mr. Barry has remained clear of scandal himself, and as he prepares to seek a third term in November, the Mayor predicts that the city’s problems will not hurt him politically.
Animal-protection activists picketed the Agriculture Department in Washington to protest a rule that dairy cattle to be slaughtered under a federal subsidy program must be branded on the face. Cleveland Amory, head of the Fund for Animals, marched with about two dozen supporters and called the requirement “the most totally stupid, unnecessary cruelty.” Under the program, the government will buy out entire herds to reduce the U.S. milk supply. About 1.5 million cows and heifers are to be slaughtered so that some farmers can suspend production for five years.
Alaska’s Augustine volcano shot debris and ash eight miles into the air in its biggest eruption in 10 years, darkening the sky as far as 70 miles from the volcanic island. Street lights came on at noon in Homer, a fishing village of 3,000 people, and residents wore masks to avoid inhaling the corrosive ash. Seismic activity measured at 2.8 on the Richter scale accompanied the eruption, and geophysicist John Power said the earthquake may have been the result of avalanches triggered by the blast.
A strong earthquake, the third in northern California in three days, made skyscrapers sway, bottles crash from shelves and shook people their slumber early this morning. A few minor injuries were reported, but property damage was not serious. The strength of the earthquake, which came at 3:56 AM, was estimated at 5.3 on the Richter scale by the University of California Seismographic Station at Berkeley. It reported that the epicenter was about 15 miles southeast of Fremont. The State Office of Emergency Services, which estimated the Richter reading at 5.6, said at least eight aftershocks ranging from 3.6 to 3.8 were recorded. A moderate earthquake, measuring 4.0 on the Richter scale, was felt Saturday morning, and a slight temblor felt Sunday night measured 2.2, as recorded by the University of California. The Richter scale is a measure of the energy released by the quake, An increase of one unit represents a tenfold increase in ground motion. An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 is capable of causing extensive damage.
The Reds trade Wayne Krenchicki to the Expos for a pair of minor leaguers — Norm Charlton and Tim Barker.
48th NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship: Louisville beats Duke, 72–69; first tournament to use a shot clock (initially set at 45 seconds). For nearly 33 minutes in tonight’s National Collegiate Athletic Association championship game, Duke’s smothering defense ground Louisville’s running game almost to a standstill. But with about seven minutes left, the Cardinals, led by Pervis Ellison, their 6-foot-9-inch freshman center, switched gears and surged past Duke to victory. Ellison, who will celebrate his 19th birthday on Thursday, dropped in a miss by his teammate Jeff Hall with 41 seconds left to give the Cardinals a 68–65 lead and effectively determine the game. Ellison hit two free throws with 27 seconds left to seal the Cardinals’ 17th straight victory. Louisville finished the season at 32–7.
The stock market ended narrowly lower yesterday in subdued post-holiday trading. Although lower interest rates and lower oil prices lent some price support, there was no momentum to continue the rally that pushed the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 33 points to a record in the final two days of trading last week. The Dow ended down 3.11 points at 1,818.61.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1818.61 (-3.11)
Born:
Madison Dylan, American actress (“Femmes Fatales”), in Wichita, Kansas.
Cveta Majtanović, Serbian pop singer (Idol Serbia-Montenegro & Macedonia, 2004), in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia.
Died:
O’Kelly Isley, 48, American rock singer (Isley Brothers, “Shout”; “Twist and Shout”; “It’s Your Thing”), of a heart attack.
Jerry Paris, 60, American director (“Happy Days”) and actor (“The Dick Van Dyke Show”).
History Diaries 