An explosion apparently caused by a bomb rocked a Trans World Airlines jet as it carried 121 people from Rome to Athens today. The explosion, which tore a gaping hole in the fuselage, killed four passengers, all Americans, and wounded nine others, airline and Greek officials said. The bodies of the four, one an infant, were sucked out of the plane through the hole and later recovered on the ground in southern Greece and in the sea nearby. Although the blast occurred as the plane was flying above 10,000 feet, the pilot was able to land in Athens 10 minutes later. Hours later, a little-known group called the Arab Revolutionary Cells asserted responsibility for the explosion in statements delivered to news agencies in Beirut. The statements said the bombing was in retaliation for “American arrogance” and the American clashes with Libya in the Gulf of Sidra last week.
Security technologists have devised methods for thwarting the smuggling of bombs aboard airliners. But because the equipment is costly and the screening process time-consuming, the bomb threat remains virtually undiminished, experts believe. Airport procedures now focus on hand luggage and on possible metal objects carried on the person. Checked luggage is not screened unless there is reason to suspect a particular piece.
The Soviet Union said it will end its self-imposed moratorium on deployment of anti-satellite weapons if the United States tests a missile against a target in space. According to a schedule of the U.S. anti-satellite research program, the next such test calls for a target to be orbited and then destroyed by a missile launched from an F-15 fighter jet. Although targets have been sent into space, the test has not been completed and no date has been made public. “If the U.S. Administration really valued its dialogue with Moscow. . . it would not have made Soviet moratoriums a target for attacks,” the Novosti news agency said.
The United States has revised the way it measures Soviet underground nuclear tests, and the new method indicates that fewer of the blasts have violated a 1974 treaty than had been charged, a high-level U.S. official said. The change in the measurement was urged by the CIA, said the official, who refused to be identified, and it involves the interpretation of the force of the tests through seismological data. He added that is why President Reagan has invited the Soviets to send observers to the U.S. test site in Nevada — so they can make onsite use of new technology to see that the United States is complying with the treaty.
The United States and Czechoslovakia have agreed on the first cultural and scientific exchanges between the two nations, Administration officials said today. They said the development had come amid signs of growing interest here in improving ties with Soviet bloc nations. Rozanne L. Ridgway, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, is to travel to Prague in two weeks to sign the accord. The agreement will open up the prospect for the largest artistic and cultural exchanges since the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 replaced a relatively liberal leadership with a more repressive government.
The Polish Government indicated today that the prospects of a visit by Pope John Paul II in 1987 were linked to the ability of Roman Catholic church leaders to curb politically active priests. Jerzy Urban, the Government spokesman, reading a prepared statement at a news conference, said: “It is in the interest of Poland that such a visit strengthen national unity and assist in the stabilization of the country and bolster its position in the world.”
The World Jewish Congress made public more documents in New York on Tuesday that further described Kurt Waldheim’s role as a German intelligence officer in World War II, but Mr. Waldheim said here today that the files disclosed nothing new. A statement by Mr. Waldheim, former United Nations Secretary General and a candidate for Austria’s Presidency, said the documents supported his claims that he was innocent of any war crimes. Mr. Waldheim, 67 years old, welcomed a decision he said the Jewish group had made to send the documents to the current Austrian president, Rudolf Kirchschlager, as a sign that the organization would not in the future interfere in Austria’s internal affairs.
President Francois Mitterrand, apparently in a policy reversal, has indicated that he is no longer opposed to an American proposal for a new initiative on terrorism at the meeting of the seven leading industrial democracies in Tokyo next month, according to officials preparing for the talks. The shift in French attitude, the sources say, appears to reflect the French President’s anger at the kidnapping of a four-man French television crew by Shiite Muslim militants in Beirut last month and the continued detention by another Shiite group of four other French citizens, one of whom may have been killed. The French President’s stiffer approach to terrorism may also head off a looming clash at the Tokyo meeting with Jacques Chirac, his neo-Gaullist Prime Minister, who favors closer cooperation with the United States in combating terrorists. Mr. Chirac plans to accompany Mr. Mitterrand to the Tokyo meeting in a bid to challenge the President’s claim that the French Constitution entrusts him with ultimate control over French foreign policy.
Britain accused Spain of violating Gibraltar’s territorial waters and airspace. A Foreign Office spokesman said that the Spanish aircraft carrier Dedalo sailed within the three-mile territorial limit that Britain claims around the colony and that two of the Dedalo’s helicopters took off and flew close to Gibraltar’s international airport. Spain rejected the British protest. The incidents heightened tension over Gibraltar, a British colony long claimed by Spain, and came three weeks before a scheduled state visit to Britain by Spain’s King Juan Carlos I.
A Northern Ireland police officer was shot and the homes of three other officers were firebombed in attacks by Protestant militants who roamed Ulster today. A second straight night of violence, primarily against the Royal Ulster Constabulary, appeared to add a new dimension to difficulties set off by the British-Irish accord of last November that gave the Irish Republic a voice in Northern Ireland affairs. The police reported 20 attacks on officers and their homes since Monday, when Protestant mobs clashed with security forces who had barred them from a march in Portadown. A Roman Catholic Church was set on fire at Lisburn outside Belfast, and the police said a car bomb exploded at Cabrath near Dungannon.
The Vatican’s forthcoming statement on liberation theology will reject the idea of revolutionary violence as a means of social reform, but it will call for the church to seek an end to all forms of political and economic repression, a summary of the statement said. The summary was sent to Roman Catholic bishops worldwide in advance of the Vatican’s formal release of the statement. Liberation theology, stressed by some priests in Latin America, often incorporates Marxism into efforts for social justice. However, the summary says the church rejects the “myth of revolution” based on the conviction “that the demolition of an unjust system is sufficient to make society more human.”
The Reagan Administration hopes its actions against Libya will ultimately prompt military officers and others in that country to remove Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi as its leader, sources in Congress and in the executive branch said today. The sources said the decision to send United States ships and planes into the Gulf of Sidra, which is claimed by Libya but is regarded as international waters by most countries, was part of the effort. It was taken for granted, they said, that Colonel Qaddafi would respond with force, as he did. The Administration welcomed the chance to strike back, sinking Libyan fast-attack craft and damaging a missile site, according to the sources, not because it thought the attacks in themselves would deter Libyan terrorism but because the attacks would help convince senior officers of the folly of Colonel Qaddafi’s policy. “What we were up to last week,” a well-informed member of Congress said, “was staging a little demonstration for the Libyan military. This was part of the overall effort to get these guys to say: ‘Look, this is costing us too much. We’re worried about Egypt, and Qaddafi keeps getting us involved in terrorism, which is too expensive.’ “
The American naval fleet that attacked Libya across the Gulf of Sidra last week began dispersing today, with one aircraft carrier headed home to Florida and the two others to Spain and Italy to give their crews liberty, Defense Department officials said. The officials said there were indications that the surface-to-air missile site at Sidra, Libya, knocked out by the fleet last week was being repaired and would soon be operational along with two sites elsewhere. The officials denied that the movement of the carriers and their escorting vessels was connected with a bomb explosion aboard a Trans World Airlines plane bound for Athens from Rome earlier today. But they cautioned that orders could be changed quickly.
The United States and Israel have begun discussion of a multibillion-dollar “Marshall Plan” for the Middle East to foster a better climate for peace in the region, a senior State Department official said today. Israeli Government sources said that the idea had been discussed with Egyptian officials and that President Hosni Mubarak had shown interest in it. The Israelis have also raised it with West German officials, and American officials said priority was being given to interesting Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany and Japanese leaders in the plan. The project will be discussed intensively in coming weeks with allied leaders in advance of next month’s summit meeting in Tokyo of industrial nations.
President Reagan places a call to Prime Minister Shimon Peres of the State of Israel. According to Israeli and American officials, Mr. Peres has been privately urging that the United States and other major industrialized nations finance a $20 billion to $30 billion development fund, which he calls a “Marshall Plan” for the Middle East. The plan, he has said, would help Arab countries hit hard by the sharp drop in oil prices, and would encourage economic cooperation within the region at a time when political efforts for peace have foundered.
Professors at the American University of Beirut went on strike, closing down the school to protest the disappearance of two British colleagues feared kidnapped by Muslim extremists in Lebanon. Dozens of university staff members have been kidnapped during Lebanon’s 11 years of civil strife. A police spokesman said there were no clues to the latest disappearances and that no group has claimed responsibility. The British Embassy called on Britons in Beirut to “restrict their movements and take special security precautions.”
The chairman of a commission seeking to recover the assets of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos returned today from the United States and reported that there had been rapid progress on several fronts. The official, Jovito R. Salonga, said he had brought with him titles to about $25 million worth of Philippine real estate and had received assurances from United States officials that the Government of President Corazon C. Aquino would soon be able to recover hundreds of millions of dollars worth of American real estate held by Mr. Marcos and his wife, Imelda. “We have brought home the bacon,” Mr. Salonga said at an airport news conference. “The long and the short of it is that we have accomplished more than our limited short-term objectives.”
A group of Haitian priests and nuns are pressing for the resignation of the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince because of what they say was his collaboration with the Duvalier Government. They have also named four priests who they feel should be removed from their parishes. Militant sectors of the Roman Catholic Church that played a key role in the ouster of President Jean-Claude Duvalier on February 7 appear to be behind the campaign against the Archbishop, Francois-Wolff Ligonde. The campaign represents the first public rift in a church that remained outwardly united during the months that priests inspired and guided Catholic youths and other dissidents who staged street demonstrations and strikes against the 29-year Duvalier family rule. It also coincides with nationwide demands that officials associated with the ousted regime be purged from Haiti’s new interim government.
A senior Honduran official has asserted that the Government never felt its security was threatened by a Nicaraguan border raid last week and sought to resist pressure from the Reagan Administration to treat the episode as a major crisis. “The United States interest was that this situation have the connotation of an international incident,” the official said of the Sandinista drive against Nicaraguan guerrilla bases in Honduras. “We had no interest in this.” He added that Honduras wanted to avoid direct military confrontation with Nicaragua and was willing to negotiate with the Sandinistas on the presence of the guerrillas here.
A grand jury in Liberia indicted Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-trained opposition figure, on treason charges for her alleged involvement in an attempt to overthrow President Samuel K. Doe last November. She could face the death penalty. Three other prominent Liberians are currently on trial on similar charges stemming from the attempted coup, which followed elections that the opposition said were blatantly rigged to allow Doe to attain the presidency.
Senior members of the House and Senate intelligence committees are trying to prevent the Reagan Administration from delivering portable antiaircraft missiles to rebel forces in Angola, according to congressional and Administration sources. These sources said Representative Lee Hamilton, the Indiana Democrat who is chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, has told the White House he will try to get a bill enacted that would cut off covert aid to the rebels if the decision is not reversed. Other Congressional officials said the Administration had notified the intelligence committees of the decision to send the missiles last Thursday, the day Congress adjourned for its week-long recess.
Bishop Desmond M. Tutu called for punitive economic sanctions against South Africa today in a statement that seemed designed to illuminate black despair and to challenge Western governments to put pressure on Pretoria to liberalize its racial policies. At the same time, lawyers acting for Winnie Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who is the wife of the jailed black nationalist leader, Nelson Mandela, said the Government had dropped restrictions that prevent her from living in her home in Soweto, Johannesburg’s huge, black satellite city. The authorities reported meanwhile that thousands of schoolchildren had returned to classes today after a committee of parents, pupils and teachers meeting in Durban last weekend urged them to do so. Some reports, however, said the return to classes was not universal, and activists in black townships said it was still unclear how long the students would remain at school.
The Administration’s decision to seek oil price stability from Saudi Arabia has sharply refocused national attention on the benefits and liabilities of falling oil prices and underscored the high political stakes involved. While still proclaiming the virtues of the free market, the Administration is sending Vice President Bush to Saudi Arabia Thursday with a mission to persuade the dominant member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that it should take action to stabilize — or even increase — the price of oil by cutting production. Now that prices have fallen as low as $10 a barrel on spot markets, the Administration has become worried about the economic damage that could result domestically, especially in Mr. Bush’s adopted state of Texas and other oil-producing states. The debate about economics and national security leads in turn to politics — Mr. Bush’s hopes of winning the Presidency in 1988. The Vice President’s public warning Tuesday about the danger of “a continued free fall” in oil prices was not the first time he was perceived as linking his own political fortunes to the prosperity of the oil industry. “My plea will be for stability of the marketplace,” Mr. Bush said of his talks in Saudi Arabia, on a trip that will include stops to three other Middle Eastern countries.
Seeking to carry out the recommendations of a special commission, President Reagan today called for increased responsibilities for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the creation of a high-ranking procurement officer at the Pentagon. Mr. Reagan ordered the changes in an executive directive and announced he would seek appropriate legislation where necessary. The directive is designed to put into effect virtually all the recommendations in a February 28 report of a bipartisan commission appointed by Mr. Reagan in June. The panel was headed by David Packard, Deputy Defense Secretary in the Nixon Administration.
After a night in port unloading more pieces of the Challenger’s crew cabin, the Navy’s prime salvage ship returned to sea this morning amid indications that it had virtually completed the task of recovering that wreckage. Radio communications from the salvage fleet, monitored here, said the wreck site “looks clear,” presumably meaning that all identified fragments from the space shuttle’s crew compartment had been removed from the ocean floor. “The Preserver’s pretty confident the bottom’s cleared,” a salvage officer reported in one of the radio transmissions, referring to the ship that is leading the search for the cabin. Another ship conducted a sonar survey Tuesday night and found no further debris at the site. The Preserver was thus directed to move to an area about a mile away to investigate sonar indications of some debris.
Governor George Corley Wallace of Alabama, whose leadership bridged three turbulent decades of Southern history from the years of segregation to the new era of biracial politics, said today that he was retiring from public life. In an emotional farewell before hundreds of supporters and state employees in the chamber of the State House of Representatives, where Mr. Wallace first took public office as a legislator in 1947, the ailing 66-year-old Governor tearfully declared, “After much prayerful consideration, I feel that I must say I have climbed my last political mountain.” Mr. Wallace’s decision to retire when his term expires in January rings down the curtain on a remarkable political career that, in the end, carried him well beyond the humid provinces of the South. It began, at his first inaugural address in 1963, with his cry, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrorow, segregation forever!” and his stand in the schoolhouse door that year to block the admission of two blacks to the University of Alabama. It reached its zenith a decade later, in 1972, in a Presidential candidacy that never realized its full potential because it was cut short in an assassination attempt that left Mr. Wallace paralyzed below the waist.
The General Accounting Office is investigating Michael K. Deaver’s work as a consultant for the Canadian Government, agency officials and the White House said today. Mr. Deaver, who resigned last year as White House deputy chief of staff, was retained to help Canada deal with the Administration on acid rain and other issues. Officials of the General Accounting Office, which is an investigative arm of Congress, said their inquiry was focusing on whether there was any connection between Mr. Deaver’s work on the acid rain issue while at the White House, his obtaining the consulting job and his role in influencing the Administration to change its position and reach agreement on acid rain with Canada last month. The Federal ethics law is aimed at restricting former officials’ exercise of influence. Meanwhile, ethical questions have been raised over a meeting Mr. Deaver held with the Federal budget director, James A. Miller 3d, in behalf of a client, Rockwell International, which is seeking to increase the Air Force’s purchase of B-1B bombers.
New York City Mayor Ed Koch signs and brings the Gay Rights Bill into effect. With hundreds of protesters waving banners and shouting slogans outside City Hall, Mayor Koch yesterday signed into law the homosexual rights bill. Within hours of the signing, however, leaders of the City Council, which approved the measure two weeks ago, said they would support an amendment to curb the law’s power and affect the rental of thousands of apartments in the city. Under the new law, effective immediately, discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on “sexual orientation” is illegal. But there are exemptions for owners of one- and two-family homes.
Republican businessman Dick Crawford grabbed 48% of the vote to win the mayor’s race in Tulsa, Oklahoma, leaving most of his 19 rivals far behind. Crawford received 46,621 votes to 34,356 for Democrat Patty Eaton, who had defeated Democratic Mayor Terry Young in the primary. Young, seeking his second two-year term as mayor, blamed his primary loss on news stories surrounding a letter he wrote seeking a lenient sentence for a former state senator convicted of mail fraud and income tax evasion.
With Chicago Mayor Harold Washington’s first-ever City Council majority at stake, a court took under advisement a challenge to a March 18 special aldermanic election and the apparent victory of a mayoral ally. The 1st District Appellate Court heard arguments from attorneys representing Luis Gutierrez, an ally of the mayor, and Manuel Torres, who is backed by Washington’s political rival, Alderman Edward Vrdolyak. Torres, who trails Gutierrez by 20 votes in the unofficial count for the 26th Ward, contends the election results were “tainted” by a lower court ruling March 25 that allowed 10 polling places to remain open two hours past closing time.
Rioting inmates who set fire to four buildings at the Kirkland Correctional Institution Tuesday night took some guards hostage but quickly released them when the police stormed the prison, the authorities said today. About 20 officers were trapped in an area with the inmates but were released unharmed when riot squads regained control of the prison about midnight, a prison spokesman said. No serious injuries were reported. Damage to the 950-inmate prison was estimated at up to $2 million, but officials said the prison, which was designed to hold 450 inmates, would remain in operation.
An explosion ripped through a carburetor repair shop near the town square in Lebanon, Tennessee, killing at least two people, injuring three others and destroying the building. Police blocked off streets and kept bystanders away from the building. “I heard a real loud noise and looked around and saw fire go all through the plant,” said James Pritchard, a worker at a company across the street.
A Steinway baby grand piano that belonged to Rock Hudson and a needlepoint rug created by the late actor were big sellers at an auction of items from his estate that brought almost $90,000 in New York. The items were among more than 700 pieces of Hudson memorabilia auctioned by William Doyle Galleries. Hudson died last October at 59 of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The pieces came from his New York City apartment and a house in Beverly Hills. The piano sold for $6,250, while the wool rug sold for $2,100.
Striking TWA flight attendants. reaffirmed their commitment to the walkout during a national teleconference of rank and file membership, the union announced. In a poll, 97% of union members said the company’s offer was not worth voting on, said Cynthia deFiguiredo, a spokeswoman for the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants. The teleconference, held Tuesday in seven cities, was seen by 2,400 of the 5,700 striking flight attendants. The flight attendants began their strike March 7 in a dispute over wages and hours.
Suburban trolley and bus drivers I walked off the job in a contract dispute, stranding about 30,000 commuters in the Philadelphia area’s second mass transit strike in three weeks. The strike by 270 drivers of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s Red Arrow Division began after union negotiators rejected an offer comparable to one that ended a city division strike March 21.
Susan Jacques, 18, was among a group of Connecticut high school students visiting Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for spring break. On April 2, 1986, Susan reportedly told friends she was leaving the motel to take a walk along the beach. She never returned. When several hours passed without a word from her, her friends contacted the police. Fort Lauderdale officers began searching immediately. Three days later, Susan was found about 35 miles (56 kilometers) away, her body discovered fully clothed and still wearing expensive jewelry. Investigators believe she was dumped in a canal in a remote area west of Delray Beach. Susan’s case remains unsolved.
Dick Crawford, a Republican, defeated 19 other candidates in Tuesday’s mayoral election in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one of six offices at stake in balloting that involved 47 candidates. With 96 percent of the 188 precincts reporting, Mr. Crawford, a 52-year-old business executive making his first run for political office, had 44,130 votes, or 48 percent. Patty Eaton, a Democrat running as an independent, came in second with 32,813 votes, or 36 percent. Eighteen independent candidates, including two high school seniors, challenged the two major party nominees in the crowded mayoral race. Tom Quinn, a 36-year-old Democrat who upset Mayor Terry Young in the March 4 primary, received 10,437 votes, or 11 percent. The remaining votes, about 4 percent of the total, were divided among the 17 other candidates.
The Providence Journal was fined $100,000 and its executive editor, Charles McC. Hauser, given an 18-month suspended prison term for violating a Federal court’s order not to publish an article about Raymond J. Patriarca, a reputed organized crime boss.
Organized crime’s influence in Nevada gambling and in the teamster union, whose Central States Pension Fund served as a virtual bank for the mob, has been confirmed in recent investigations, according to law enforcement officials. The investigations also underscored the routine manner in which mobsters routinely skim casino profits.
The City of New Orleans has agreed to pay more than $2.8 million in out-of-court settlements of lawsuits filed by 13 people who accused the police of mistreating them in an investigation of a police officer’s slaying in 1980. The settlement was disclosed Tuesday when court records were unsealed by Federal District Judge A. J. McNamara, who was to have presided at a trial in July of the suits against 55 police officers and other defendants. The suits accused the police of conspiring to punish blacks living in the city’s Algiers section after Gregory Neupert, a white police officer, was found shot to death next to his patrol car on November 8, 1980. Four blacks were killed in raids by the police searching for Officer Neupert’s killer.
A pornography panel is in discord on some major issues and may issue contradictory reports on sexually explicit material and its effects on the public, according to some members of the federal commission. They said the panelists had agreed to support new restrictions on the sale of pornography involving violence and children but were split over whether to clamp down on other sexually explicit material.
Forest and brush fires were raging at hundreds of sites in the eastern United States. Officials said that since January 1 blazes had burned 600,000 acres in the Southeast and 150,000 acres in the Northeast.
A storm brought up to 19 inches of snow to the Rockies and headed toward the Plains, prompting ranchers to herd livestock into protected areas, the National Weather Service said. In Alabama, authorities blamed dense fog and speeding motorists for a series of pileups that left two persons dead and closed Interstate 10 near Mobile for 10 hours. The violent storm, centered over the southern and central Rockies, spread rain and snow from Arizona to Montana and whipped up high winds in the Southwest. In the southern Colorado mountains, the storm blanketed the Purgatory ski area with 19 inches of snow.
The International Business Machines Corporation introduced its long-awaited laptop computer yesterday, a 12-pound battery-operated model built for traveling executives, writers and sales representatives. The $2,000 machine, which was greeted cautiously by dealers and analysts, marks I.B.M.’s entry into a market that only two years ago its own executives said seemed risky and perhaps unprofitable. But yesterday they expressed confidence that the quickly maturing personal computer market was now ready for a lightweight I.B.M. computer, compatible with its desktop line, that could be used in the office, then unplugged and carried aboard an airplane or a car. “It has the virtue of being a desktop machine that you can also travel with,” William C. Lowe, the president of I.B.M.’s Entry Systems division, said yesterday. “For the first time, we make a computer small enough that my wife lets me keep upstairs, not down in the room off the basement.”
NCAA Basketball Rules Committee votes to adopt the 3-point shot beginning the 1986-87 season; sets college distance at 19 feet, 9 inches, compared to 21 feet in the NBA.
Paul Coffey of the Edmonton Oilers scores his 47th and 48th goals of the season in an 8-4 win over the Vancouver Canucks to break Bobby Orr’s NHL record for most goals by a defenseman.
Stock prices ended mixed yesterday after Tuesday’s 28-point decline. The Dow Jones industrial average, off as much as 15 points in early trading, finished the day 5.15 ahead, at 1,795.26, as prices steadily recuperated. Nevertheless, declining stocks exceeded the issues that advanced by 899 to 748. Losers had been ahead of winners by as much as 3 to 1 early in the day.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1795.26 (+5.15)
Born:
Andris Biedriņš, Latvian National Team and NBA center (Golden State Warriors, Utah Jazz), in Riga, Latvian SSR, Soviet Union.
Erlana Larkins, WNBA forward (WNBA Champions-Fever, 2012; New York Liberty, Indiana Fever, Minnesota Lynx), in West Palm Beach, Florida.
History Diaries 