In the aftermath of the two terrorist bombings in Europe last week, the United States will press its European allies again to take political and economic actions against Libya, a senior Reagan Administration official said today. He said the Administration was concerned that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, not be allowed to portray the current situation as a strictly Libyan-American conflict. He said this perception only won sympathy for Colonel Qaddafi. Among steps to be discussed with the allies will be the ouster of Libyan diplomats known to have used their diplomatic immunity to funnel explosives into Europe and to check American installations as a prelude to possible terrorist attack, the official said.
William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence, said at a meeting of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee today that while the allies were cooperating more on security and intelligence against terrorism, they had failed to develop “a concerted diplomatic action, economic and political sanctions to evoke a penalty on the states which participate in state-sponsored terrorism.” “Many of our friends and allies are rather slow on that,” he said. “We can only hope and believe that the recent outrageous character of terrorist attacks in all countries will stimulate cooperation of that kind.” Much of Mr. Casey’s presentation was an attack on the Soviet Union for trying to establish “bridgeheads” in such places as Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Libya, Syria, Angola, Afghanistan and Vietnam. He said the new Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, was actively engaged in that effort. “We have a new Soviet leader, Mr. Gorbachev, and already a hallmark of his regime is an intensified attempt to nail down and cement these bridgeheads, make them permanent,” he said. His direct criticism of Mr. Gorbachev seemed inconsistent with the Reagan Administration’s avoidance of personal attacks on the Soviet leader at a time when plans for a new summit meeting are expected to be discussed in coming days.
American explosives experts will perform laboratory tests on bits of clothing and aircraft debris in an effort to determine precisely what kind of bomb exploded on a Trans World Airlines jet last week, investigators said here today. The clothing was taken from the bodies of the four Americans who were killed on Wednesday when a bomb exploded inside the passenger cabin as the plane was approaching the Athens airport, the Greek authorities said. Autopsies performed on Friday and Saturday confirmed that the bomb had exploded under the window seat occupied by Alberto Ospina, a Colombian-born American citizen from Stratford, Conn., according to the Athens News Agency. Mr. Ospina’s lower torso was blackened with smoke by the blast, the agency said, and a post-mortem examination indicated he was dead by the time he was blown out of the plane through the hole torn in the fuselage.
The West German Government appointed a panel today to evaluate the possibility that foreign governments had some involvement in a bombing at a discotheque here that killed an American soldier and a Turkish woman. A Foreign Ministry statement issued in Bonn said the action was taken in reaction to reports of possible Libyan involvement in the attack early Saturday at the club, which was frequented by United States soldiers. French Expulsion of Libyans Bonn’s decision was made a day after France announced it was expelling two Libyan diplomats who it said were in touch with people believed to be planning attacks against American targets. In another sign that France is willing to take firmer action to combat terrorism, President Francois Mitterrand last week reversed his opposition to closer coordination of intelligence exchanges with allied governments.
Falling petroleum prices were discussed by Vice President Bush at a meeting in Saudi Arabia. He said he was not seeking oil production controls from Saudi Arabia but that the falling prices could reach a point where they threaten the security of the United States. He spoke at a meeting of the American Businessmen’s Group in Riyadh and then went on to Dhahran, for an official meeting with King Fahd and that was to be followed by a business meeting. He is also scheduled to visit Bahrain, Oman and North Yemen on an eight-day visit to the Middle East.
France won approval today to reduce the value of the franc and announced economic measures designed to break with the legacy of four years of Socialist rule. Two weeks after taking office, France’s conservative Government said it would cut public spending and reduce price and currency controls. The measures, together with the franc devaluation, were described by the French Finance Minister, Edouard Balladur, as “a new economic policy” to steer France toward greater economic liberalism. The moves are intended to make French exports cheaper, help lower interest rates and carry out a pledge to relax France’s tight official control over its economy. France will cut the franc’s value in a broad realignment of currencies among the eight member countries of the European Monetary System. After a day and a night of negotiations in the Netherlands, the eight finance ministers agreed to the realignment, creating an effective 6 percent devaluation of the franc in relation to the powerful West German mark and the Dutch guilder. West Germany and the Netherlands will raise the value of their currencies 3 percent, while France will reduce the franc’s value by 3 percent, resulting in the 6 percent difference. Belgium, Luxembourg and Denmark will revalue their currencies upward by 1 percent. Italy and Ireland will make no changes.
The Soviet Union is facing a drug problem and might join Interpol to help combat narcotics traffickers, the international police agency’s secretary general, Raymond Kendall, said. East European countries have now become drug-smuggling routes, said Kendall, a former Scotland Yard police chief, adding that any transit country automatically develops “local consumption.”
Greek police continued to question Arabs and other foreigners at Athens’ international airport but said that a Lebanese woman was the only suspect in the bombing of a Trans World Airlines jetliner over Greece last Wednesday in which four Americans were killed. The woman, May Elias Mansour, told reporters in Lebanon that she had no role in the bombing.
Northern Ireland police raided the headquarters of the main Protestant paramilitary group after extremists burned or stoned the homes of 16 officers and six Roman Catholics. They seized tapes and documents at the Belfast office of the Ulster Defense Assn., which is suspected of helping to organize an unprecedented wave of Protestant anti-police violence. The Protestant militants oppose an accord signed by Britain and the Irish Republic that gives the Roman Catholic republic a consultative role in British-ruled, Protestant-dominated Ulster.
The main battlefield in British politics right now is a socially diverse neighborhood, here in a bend in the River Thames, that is about to be the scene of an important political test for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The test is a parliamentary by-election in the constituency of Fulham that is being held to fill a seat left vacant by the death of a member of Mrs. Thatcher’s Conservative Party who snatched it away from the Labor Party in 1979 and held onto it at the last general election in 1983. Now the Conservatives are fighting desperately to avoid a humiliating third-place finish in a three-sided race. One of the mysterious rituals of British politics is the way deep meaning is read into the outcome of such an isolated electoral skirmish. But this time the usual by-election fuss seems at least partly warranted, for the contest in Fulham is the first to be held since Mrs. Thatcher and her party took an undignified political spill at the start of the year in a controversy over the fate of an insolvent helicopter company. The dispute revealed deep divisions in the Cabinet and undermined the dominant position the Prime Minister has enjoyed for nearly seven years.
King Fahd of Saudi Arabia met with Vice President Bush into the early morning today and indicated that his country has “been given a bum rap” for chaos in oil markets, according to a senior American official. Mr. Bush’s two-and-a-half hour meeting with King Fahd came after a banquet Sunday at the king’s summer palace. Earlier on Sunday, the Vice President had warned a group of American businessmen about the implications of low oil prices for the economy and security of the United States. He and his wife, Barbara, then had a festive lunch in a tent in the desert. Marlin Fitzwater, chief spokesman for the Vice President, said Mr. Bush had described the meeting with King Fahd as “most informative and hospitable” when he and the King emerged from the session at 1:05 AM. The senior United States officials who participated in the meeting said King Fahd had spoken at length about Saudi Arabia’s support for Middle East peace efforts, on the need for United States involvement in the peace process and on the threat posed to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states by the war between Iran and Iraq.
A Syrian-sponsored cease-fire took effect around two Beirut refugee camps, ending 10 days of battles between Palestinian guerrillas and Shia Muslim militiamen that took dozens of lives. Most of the fighting occurred at the Palestinian refugee camps called Sabra and Chatilla, on Beirut’s southern outskirts. The Shias have tried to stop the Palestinian Liberation Organization from rebuilding the Beirut power base it lost when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982.
Soviet and Afghan forces bombed and shelled an underground rebel base at Zhawar in eastern Afghanistan in their first major assault this year against supply routes near the Pakistan border, guerrilla sources reported in Islamabad, Pakistan. The attack at Zhawar reportedly began after Soviet and Afghan forces wiped out a smaller base in Kunar province last week, and rebel groups in Pakistan said they were rushing reinforcements across the border. Soviet and Afghan forces last summer tried to capture the base, carved into the side of a deep valley, but were beaten back. Afghan guerrillas said today that waves of Soviet and Afghan jets blasted rebel positions in Afghanistan’s strategic Paktia Province as elite commando units backed by tanks fought to encircle the insurgents in a major offensive. Guerrilla officials said tank units Soviet and Afghan commandos, transported by helicopters were closing in on a string of heavily-defended insurgent strongholds in southern Paktia, near the Pakistan border. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, the officials said. Officials of the Yunis Khalis guerrilla group, one of seven Afghan rebel groups fighting the Marxist Government of President Babrak Karmal, said more than 1,000 commandos landed by helicopter Friday around the large Yunis Khalis base at Zhawar. They said Soviet and Afghan jetfighters repeatedly bombed the base and other guerrilla positions. The officials said rebel antiaircraft batteries at the base shot down at least one jet and five helicopters. The base, a mile-long series of man-made underground caverns abour 12 miles from the border with Pakistan is defended by artillery and tanks.
Guerrillas set off a car bomb in the Afghan capital of Kabul today, wounding 22 people, the official Kabul Radio reported. The radio, monitored here, said the bomb exploded in a car parked outside Kabul Hotel in the center of the capital. The hotel is used by Government and military officials and is near government buildings. It blamed the blast on “counterrevolutionaries,” a term used by the Afghan authorities for Islamic guerrillas fighting the Soviet-backed Government. Seventeen of the wounded were later discharged from hospital.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, jolted by spreading violence in Punjab, has shaken up police operations in the state and pressed moderate Sikh leaders to take a tougher line against the killings. Mr. Gandhi’s actions followed a turbulent month in which more than 80 people died in bombings, shootings and encounters with the police. On Saturday six policemen were shot dead at a courthouse in Punjab by Sikh extremists who freed three prisoners accused of killing a Hindu editor. In response to the last month’s outburst of violence, the worst in the state since 1984, Mr. Gandhi installed the country’s senior police administrator as head of police operations in Punjab. The official, Julio Rebeiro, had won acclaim for restoring order last year to the western state of Gujarat, where hundreds had been killed in Hindu-Moslem clashes.
India’s notorious “bikini killer” was recaptured, three weeks after he escaped from a New Dehli prison by drugging his guards with dope-laced sweets. Charles Sobhraj, 41, was arrested near Goa, a popular tourist resort, with David Hall, a Briton who allegedly masterminded the breakout in which six other inmates escaped, the Press Trust of India reported. Sobhraj, whose exploits were chronicled in two best-selling books, is wanted in at least eight other countries on two continents. Several of his victims were found floating in the Gulf of Thailand, clad in bikinis.
Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger arrived here today for the highest-level meetings yet held between the United States and the new Government of President Corazon C. Aquino. Mr. Weinberger’s two-day visit, during which he will also call on Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, Vice President Salvador H. Laurel and the armed forces Chief of Staff, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, comes at a time when the United States is considering an increase in aid to the Philippines. Though neither side has announced an agenda, Philippine Government sources said they expected the question of aid to be a top priority. Mr. Enrile said he expected to discuss both military assistance and the future of two major American bases. Mr. Weinberger, who had held earlier talks with the Governments in Seoul and Tokyo, made no statement on his arrival here. But Assistant Defense Secretary Richard L. Armitage, who is traveling with him, said earlier that “there is a very high likelihood that we would be increasing in an appropriate way the amount of security assistance” offered by Washington.
Examination of the wreckage of the Mexican jetliner that crashed a week ago shows that the Boeing 727 caught fire in flight, sources close to the inquiry said yesterday. They said it had also been determined that plane parts began dropping from the three-engine craft before its final impact on the side of a 9,000-foot mountain 100 miles northwest of Mexico City last Monday. All 166 people on board were killed. The in-flight fire appears to have broken out in the plane’s cargo area, below the passenger cabin, the sources said. A priority goal now, they added, is to find evidence of whether the fire was accidental or could have been caused by a bomb or other sabotage.
In an effort to keep foundering peace talks alive, Latin American foreign ministers meeting in Panama City pressed a reluctant Nicaragua to stay in the negotiations, officials said. Latin American officials met for a second day Sunday in an effort to end an impasse in negotiations on a regional peace treaty for Central America. The talks continued unexpectedly into the early morning hours with no decisions anticipated until later today. The weekend discussions, involving Foreign Ministers from five Central American nations and from eight countries involved in what is known as the Contadora peace process, centered on security guarantees and on United States assistance to Nicaraguan rebels, according to several negotiators. Officials said Nicaragua was demanding that the Contadora group condemn the Reagan Administration’s effort to provide new funds to the Nicaraguan rebels and that the negotiators call for direct talks between the United States and Nicaragua.
An earthquake near Cuzco, Peru killed at least seven people, injured 35 and left 600 families homeless in this Andean region, officials said today. Two Inca sites and five colonial churches were also damaged. The earthquake, measured at 5.0 on the Richter scale and with an epicenter 12 miles northeast of Cuzco, occurred Saturday. It toppled two walls at the Puku Pukara Inca fortress and opened a crack at the Tambo Machay bath used by Indian nobles when Cuzco was the capital of the ancient Inca empire, the federal Cultural Institute said. The Richter scale is an index to the severity of earthquakes, with each unit increase representing a thirtyfold increase in the energy released. The epicenter is the point on the surface directly over the point of origin.
Winnie Mandela was quoted today in the South African press for the first time in 11 years. She was quoted in two leading newspapers that dismissed as no longer valid the Government ban on quoting her. One paper, The Sunday Star of Johannesburg, quoted the anti-apartheid leader as assailing President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain as “friends of the racists,” referring to South Africa’s Government. The Star said that in an interview Saturday, Mrs. Mandela also called for “immediate and total” international sanctions against South Africa. Mrs. Mandela, the wife of jailed black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, has been under banning orders for most of the past 23 years. The orders restricted her movements, barred her from political activity and prohibited the nation’s news media from quoting her. The last time she was quoted directly by the national media was in 1975, during a brief lull before her restrictions were renewed.
When Congress returns to Capitol Hill from its Easter recess on Tuesday, legislators are likely to adopt a compromise that allocates some military aid to the guerrillas trying to oust the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua. The real fight will be over whether Congress directs President Reagan to negotiate seriously with the Sandinistas before the money is released. The Nicaraguan issue surged to the top of the Congressional agenda last month, as the House rejected Mr. Reagan’s request for $100 million in rebel aid by a narrow margin, 222 to 210. The Senate then approved the request, 53 to 47, and the House is scheduled to renew consideration of the matter on April 15.
The President and First Lady return to the White House from their trip to Rancho del Cielo.
A leading conservative on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission demanded that commission Chairman Clarence M. Pendleton Jr. resign because his “inflammatory rhetoric and fulminations” have destroyed his effectiveness. John H. Bunzel, who has frequently sided with Pendleton in forming a conservative majority on the seven-member commission, ticked off a series of complaints in a letter to Pendleton. Bunzel catalogued actions that he said have “served to undermine the credibility of the commission.” He contended that Pendleton had “made common cause with those who label extremist anyone who questions the advisability of certain affirmative action policies.” The letter said that Pendleton has charged “those who do not share your views with fostering a ‘new racism.’ ” A spokesman for Pendleton rejected Bunzel’s demand.
The Army has wasted millions of dollars of ammunition by budgeting far more than needed and then urging soldiers to fire as many of the bullets, explosives and grenades as possible in training, Army auditors say. Army headquarters tacitly encouraged waste by authorizing $755 million more for training ammunition than units could use — a 35% excess — between 1982 and 1984, the Army Audit Agency said. Army units in Europe were allotted from two to six times more small-arms ammunition in 1985 than they had used in 1984. auditors said in a January report made available to United Press International.
A salvage vessel returned to port bearing a large, jagged piece of the shuttle Challenger’s right wing and a chunk of the ship’s fuselage emblazoned with an intact American flag. Technicians at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida sifted through debris recovered by a scallop boat called the Big Foot from the crash site of Challenger’s crew cabin but it was not known if any remains of crew members were found. The Big Foot tied up at a Navy submarine dock late Saturday night and unloaded enough crates and apparent debris to fill a flatbed truck. An ambulance met the ship but it was not thought that anything was placed inside.
American colleges and universities are planning to raise tuition charges next fall by an average of 7 to 8 percent, about the same rate as last year, according to a spot check. The total bill for tuition, room and board at the most expensive private colleges will exceed $16,000. For example, students and their families will pay $16,040 for the coming year at Yale University, $14,580 at Vassar College and $10,230 at Russell Sage College. Both the State University of New York, where New York students pay $1,350, and the City University of New York, which charges $1,225, will hold the line on tuition. Announced tuition increases range from 6 percent at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, to the 13 percent rise that New York University will impose on entering freshmen as part of a multi-year plan to raise its schedule of charges.
New rules for steel bargaining have resulted from the contract that ended a bitter strike at the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation by the United Steelworkers of America. The agreement cut management’s labor costs but gave employees a significant role in running the company under its new chief executive, George A. Ferris. The settlement is now providing a basis for union talks at six other major steel companies.
Civilians are spying in space, according to aerospace experts. They say researchers of the British Interplanetary Society, scientists from the University of Alaska and editors of the National Geographic and Aviation Week and Space Technology have used satellite photographs to peek into the secretive world of the Soviet military. Surveillance from space, long conducted by the intelligence agencies of the United States and the Soviet Union, is expanding into civilian areas because of technical advances in the construction of satellite cameras and the onset of vigorous free-market competition to sell space photographs, the experts say. The civilians have focused in particular on Soviet military activities. In the past, photos from civilian satellites were used mainly for crop forecasting, mineral exploration and forestry management. Such uses require a distant view of the earth’s surface.
A gunman who held police at bay for 48 hours while he kept his former wife prisoner in a Euless, Texas, convenience store where she worked was shot to death by officers who stormed the building after he killed her, authorities said. The victims, Malone Mataele, 27, and Cassandra Mataele, were immigrants from Tonga, in the South Pacific. Police had allowed Mataele’s brother, who was not identified, into the store in an effort to end the impasse. A police officer was shot and wounded shortly after the incident began when he responded to a silent alarm. The gunman had fired several shots inside the store during the ordeal, but there were no other injuries.
Firefighters in San Francisco today recovered a charred body from the rubble of a warehouse that was destroyed Friday night in a fire that may have killed seven people, the police said. The body, which was too badly burned to identify, was found in what was left of the three-story Bayview Industrial Park, which housed a paint manufacturer, woodwork shops, automobile repair shops, artists’ studios and some residential units. The fire, which may have started in a cabinet shop, injured at least 22 people and caused about $10 million in damage. Five people remain hospitalized, two in serious condition.
Opening arguments are to begin Monday in the San Rafael, California trial of a lawyer charged with two counts of murder and one count of conspiracy in a San Quentin prison shooting in 1971 that left George Jackson and five other people dead. The lawyer, Stephen M. Bingham, 44 years old, a member of a wealthy and politically prominent Connecticut family, disappeared for almost 13 years after the incident. He is accused of giving Mr. Jackson, who wrote the book “Soledad Brothers” and was a member of the Black Panther Party, the 0.9-millimeter automatic pistol used in the attempted prison break.
Senator Paula Hawkins will undergo surgery Tuesday to relieve chronic back and neck pain. The surgery will interrupt her re-election campaign, already marked by questions about her health. The operation will be performed at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, Bill Hart, spokesman for the Florida Republican, announced today. He said Mrs. Hawkins would be hospitalized for one to three weeks and would miss at least a month of Senate sessions.
Two more anti-apartheid protesters were arrested on the lawn of the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison as they tried to rebuild symbolic shanties that were ripped down by police the night before. The latest arrests came after demonstrators tried to bring scraps of wood to a site where police had dismantled shanties Friday and Saturday nights, resulting in 17 arrests. Some of the 50 protesters on the lawn yelled obscenities at police after the latest arrests.
Bishops from one of three Lutheran denominations that had agreed to merge into a 5.3 million-member group now say they may not. Leaders of the denomination, the Lutheran Church in America, say that if changes in a proposed constitution of the merged group are not made, they will recommend against the merger. The Lutheran Church in America has raised several questions about the constitution, including provisions on the church’s mission and a quota system designed to create racial and sexual balance of power in the church, The Minneapolis Star and Tribune reported today. The Lutheran Church in America, with nearly 3 million members, has been trying to merge with the American Lutheran Church and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches.
A drug that shortens the course of herpes infections and apparently lengthens the time between eruptions of herpes-related sores may be a breakthrough in treatment of the incurable disorder, a doctor reported. Details of two studies, appearing in the British journal Lancet, show that when intervir-A — not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration — was applied to herpes sores, the eruptions quickly disappeared, and incidents of recurrent outbreaks were greatly reduced.
Countries that do not protect American copyrights, trademarks and patents could be denied tariff concessions by the United States, while American laws would be stiffened to prevent sales of pirated or counterfeit goods here under new Reagan Administration proposals to be announced this week. “The United States provides strong protection for intellectual property rights within our borders for domestic and foreign citizens and businesses,” a Presidential policy statement said. “We expect other nations to do the same in the interest of stimulating increased innovation and improving living standards throughout the world.”
CBS airs the fact based “Nobody’s Child”, the story of Marie Balter, starring Marlo Thomas. At 6, Balter’s alcoholic mother abandoned her. She was adopted by an elderly couple who locked her in the basement and abused her. Suicidal and depressed, she was committed to Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts for 20 years. There, she was kept in a locked ward, misdiagnosed, mistreated and given up on as “hopeless.” In addition, she was finally reunited with her natural mother. But within a year of the reunion, her mother died in a fire. Her adoptive parents disowned her. And when she tried to reconcile with her adoptive father, he “dropped dead in my arms when I went up to kiss him.” Eventually, with the help of a doctor who refused to give up, Balter was correctly diagnosed. She had severe anxiety and panic disorder, which were frequently exacerbated by the medications she received. The change was drastic. She married, earned a master’s degree in social work from Harvard and returned to Danvers to start her own mental-health center.
Nabisco Dinah Shore Women’s Golf, Mission Hills CC: Pat Bradley wins the 4th of her 6 major titles, 2 strokes ahead of runner-up Val Skinner. The 35-year-old from Massachusetts, leading from start to finish at Mission Hills Country Club, made sure of the triumph early in the final round, then eased in today to win the $75,000 first prize — the biggest single check in the history of women’s golf. Never really challenged after sinking a 50-foot birdie putt on the fifth hole, she scored 1-under-par 71 in the final round for a 72-hole total of 280.
Julius Erving made a desperation off-balance 3-point field goal as time expired today to give the Philadelphia 76ers a 95-94 victory that ended the Boston Celtics’ 14-game winning streak. Erving, who finished with 23 points, grabbed the ball three feet outside the 3-point line after Charles Barkley had won a jump ball from Kevin McHale and tipped the ball. Erving turned and put up a 25-foot shot over a leaping Danny Ainge to cap the comeback in the fight-marred game.
Born:
Aaron Curry, NFL linebacker (Seattle Seahawks, Oakland Raiders), in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Tyronne Green, NFL guard and center (San Diego Chargers), in Pensacola, Florida.
History Diaries 