Secretary of State George P. Shultz and the Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, will probably meet in Washington in the second half of May to prepare the way for a summit meeting that could be held in July, Reagan Administration officials said today. The decision to proceed with summit planning came against a background of recriminations between the two countries in recent months. American officials said they hoped the decision might indicate a more constructive relationship. The officials said Mr. Shultz and Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, the national security adviser, met for breakfast this morning at the State Department with Anatoly F. Dobrynin, the departing Soviet envoy, to discuss a date for the Shultz-Shevardnadze meeting. That meeting in turn would prepare for the meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader. No date has been set for that meeting, but it could occur in July, Administration officials said.
In keeping with Mr. Shultz’s recent request for a return to private diplomacy, few details of the breakfast meeting were made known. Mr. Dobrynin is to meet with Mr. Reagan at the White House on Tuesday morning, and it is possible that an announcement on the Shultz-Shevardnadze meeting might be made afterward, officials said. A United States underground nuclear explosion is also due to be detonated at the Nevada test site on Tuesday, State Department officials said. Mr. Gorbachev has said the Soviet moratorium on testing nuclear devices would end when the next American nuclear device is exploded. Washington has rejected his proposal for a complete ban on such explosions. Because of a delay of months in agreeing on a summit date, the matter has taken on symbolic significance here as a test of Soviet-American relations. At the close of the summit meeting in Geneva last November, the two leaders agreed to meet in 1986 in the United States and in 1987 in the Soviet Union. Mr. Reagan said Mr. Gorbachev had consented to come in June. But the repeated failure of Moscow to set the date officially led the White House to become irritated, and to raise questions about Mr. Gorbachev’s willingness to live up to a commitment.
Reagan Administration officials said today that their general view was that at least one of the terrorist attacks in Europe last week was a Libyan response to American naval action in the Gulf of Sidra last month, and that the Administration anticipated more such attacks in the coming weeks. According to the officials, even though American intelligence had picked up reports of plans by terrorist groups associated with Libya as early as late December, near the time of the attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports, intelligence warnings of further activities increased significantly after Libya attacked American forces in the gulf and American aircraft retaliated. “This is Qaddafi’s only way of striking back, since his military options are limited,” a high-ranking Administration official said. Early last week, the officials said, intelligence reports indicated that a group connected with Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, was planning a major act of violence against a civilian target in Western Europe. The officials said they believed the attack in question was the bombing on Saturday of a discotheque in West Berlin that was popular with American troops, but they added they had no direct evidence to prove it.
Two American women and a baby were killed last week when they hit the ground, not by the bomb that blew them out of a Trans World Airlines jet, pathologists who examined the bodies said today. Greek and American forensic pathologists said only Alberto Ospina, 39 years old, of Stratford, Connecticut, was killed by the bomb. He occupied seat 10F on the Boeing 727, which was bound from Rome to Athens on Wednesday and landed safely after the explosion.
West German prosecutors offered a reward of $62,000 for information leading to the capture of terrorists who planted a bomb Saturday at a West Berlin nightclub frequented by U.S. servicemen. The attack killed a U.S. soldier [a second dies this Summer from his wounds] and a 29-year-old Turkish woman and wounded 193 people; police earlier had said more than 200 were injured. Thirty of the 64 Americans hurt in the blast remained hospitalized.
West Germany is tightening security against new terrorist attacks. Security officials also said they were working on the assumption that a bombing at a West Berlin discotheque over the weekend in which an American serviceman was killed was the work of foreign terrorists. But Bonn appeared unlikely to agree to renewed American requests that it disentangle itself politically and economically from Libya, unless incontrovertible evidence is found of Libyan involvement in the discotheque bombing. The bombing killed an American serviceman and a Turkish woman and wounded more than 200 people.
Irish nationalists and Protestant extremists attacked police in Northern Ireland on the seventh straight day of violence against the Royal Ulster Constabulary in the British province. Four gunmen believed to be Irish Republican Army guerrillas opened fire from a hijacked taxi, seriously wounding a policeman in Londonderry. In Belfast, a gunman also believed to be from the IRA fired several shots into an armored police jeep. And Protestant militants threw gasoline bombs at the homes of four police officers and two former officers, badly damaging one house.
France arrested an extreme leftist believed to be a member of a group held responsible for the killing of a French military officer last year. The police seemed to have scored a major success in their fight against terrorism with the arrest in Lyons on March 28 of Andre Olivier, believed to be a founding member of Direct Action, a group suspected of bombing attacks since 1982.
Austria asked the United Nations today for permission to examine a secret file on former Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, and the world body agreed. The Austrian Government formally requested the file today after it received written confirmation from Mr. Waldheim that he would not object, according to Wolfgang Petritsch, a spokesman for the Austrian Mission. The issue has arisen amid Mr. Waldheim’s campaign for the Austrian presidency, which has been marred by accusations that Mr. Waldheim has concealed his war record for 40 years. The chief United Nations spokesman, Francois Giuliani, said the file would be made available to Austrian authorities, as well as to Israeli authorities who also requested the file, at the United Nations Archives at 345 Park Avenue South in Manhattan on Wednesday morning. Representatives from both Governments will be allowed to photocopy the documents, which, under United Nations rules, are to remain confidential.
Israeli planes attacked Palestinian guerrilla bases around Sidon in southern Lebanon today. It was the second such attack on the port city in 12 days. The police said two people were killed and 20 wounded when six jets bombed targets in two Palestinian districts, Ain Khilwe and Mieh Mieh, as well as a neighboring village, Sirobieh. A number of houses were damaged, the police said. Local radio stations said an office in Sirobieh belonging to a fundamentalist Lebanese faction known as the Islamic Society was also struck. The society is a component of the Islamic Resistance Front, which is led by the Party of God, a group linked to Iran. The front said it was responsible for ambushing an Israeli patrol in southern Lebanon and capturing two soldiers Feb. 17.
The head of Israeli army intelligence said he believes that 21 American, French, British and Jewish hostages missing in Lebanon since 1984 were all kidnaped by the extremist Iranian-backed Hezbollah (Party of God). Major General Amnon Shahak, in a Jerusalem speech on terrorism to Israeli and European insurance agents, was the first Israeli official to directly link the kidnappings to Hezbollah.
Israel’s national unity Government was embroiled in another crisis today, with the Labor Prime Minister and the Likud Foreign Minister seemingly locked on a collision course. The situation arose after Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced that he intended to dismiss the Finance Minister, Yitzhak Modai of Likud, because Mr. Modai had insulted the Labor Party leader. Yitzhak Shamir, the Likud leader and Foreign Minister, told Mr. Peres at a meeting this morning that he and his party would not allow the Prime Minister to dismiss Mr. Modai, one of the leading figures in the Likud bloc. With rumors spreading here that the Cabinet could break up within hours, several rabbis from the religious parties that help to make up the Government began mediating between Labor and Likud.
Sharpshooters at the Cairo airport are part of a large police and Army force assigned to anti-terrorist duty. Perched on a balcony overlooking the cacophonous departure hall of Cairo International Airport, Khyrat Ali Sherby looks through the sight of his rifle, pointed at the entrance doors. From a distance of two football fields, individual faces swim into focus in the cross hairs of his sniperscope. The black-uniformed riot officer is one of seven police sharpshooters assigned to anti-terrorist duty at the Cairo airport. They, in turn, are part of a force of 60 officers carrying Beretta machine guns who belong to a contingent of 400 policemen at the airport. That does not include the 1,000 soldiers guarding the airport and 1,400 other troops posted around the perimeter.
Muslim rebels said today that they had downed a seventh enemy plane as they slowly pushed back a Communist offensive on a major guerrilla base in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. The heaviest fighting was around Zhawar, one of the most fortified rebel bases in Afghanistan, the rebel sources said. The rebels said they had shot down seven Soviet and Afghan aircraft and captured 65 Afghan soldiers since the Communist forces began their attack Friday. They did not give details on casualties for either side. The base, which includes bomb shelters big enough for tanks, an underground hospital, a video lounge and repair shops for weapons and vehicles, has withstood several attacks in the past. The latest attack began a week after Soviet and Afghan commandos wiped out another rebel base near the Pakistan border in Kunar Province.
A man sought for crimes in several countries who embarrassed Indian security officials by drugging his jailers and fleeing the country’s maximum security prison last month was captured Sunday night at a bar in the southern resort area of Goa. The man, Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj, a French national wanted in more than a dozen murder, robbery and drugging cases in Europe and Southeast Asia, was seized by policemen posing as waiters as he made a phone call, the police said. David Hall, identified as a British national who helped in the escape, was also arrested, they said. Mr. Sobhraj, 41 years old, known for his flamboyant style, was grabbed after Bombay police officers, posing as waiters at a restaurant, served him and his associate drinks while confirming their identity. It was not immediately clear how Mr. Sobhraj had traveled to Goa, about 750 miles south of New Delhi.
The Soviet Union, as it continues to build its military strength in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, is at the same time trying to increase its economic and diplomatic influence in the area, according to regional officials and diplomats. Taking advantage of widespread discontent in Southeast Asia caused by falling commodity prices and protectionist moves in the United States and Western Europe, Moscow has been sending high-level delegations to the region offering aid and trade. At the same time, the Soviet Union has been trying to broker a Southeast Asian regional security pact and has also volunteered its assistance in searching for a formula to end the war in Cambodia. To carry out the new initiatives, a new breed of Soviet diplomat — relaxed, congenial and with more power to make on-the-spot comments if not decisions — is appearing in Southeast Asia and the small island nations of the Western and South Pacific.
South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan arrived in London at the start of a four-nation tour aimed at improving Seoul’s political and economic ties with Western Europe-as well as its image in the wake of anti-government demonstrations. He is also scheduled to visit West Germany, France and Belgium.
A weekend explosion of a jet fuel tank at the Osan Air Base in South Korea killed 15 South Koreans and an American Air Force sergeant, the authorities said today. The Pentagon identified the dead serviceman as Sgt. Enrique J. Lozano, 23 years old, of Lake Station, Indiana. Twelve other South Koreans were also injured in the blast. Sergeant Lozano was stationed at Osan with the 51st Supply Squadron as a refueling unit operator, the Pentagon said. Osan, 37 miles south of Seoul, is the major United States Air Force installation in Korea.
Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger met today with President Corazon C. Aquino and promised that the United States would emphasize economic aid over military assistance to the Philippines. Mr. Weinberger, the highest ranking official of the Reagan Administration to call on the new Government, also delivered a personal letter from Mr. Reagan that congratulated Mrs. Aquino on her accession to the presidency in February and pledged Mr. Reagan’s support in the wake of the flight of the deposed President, Ferdinand E. Marcos. The Defense Secretary declined to reveal the contents of the letter, but Rene Saguisag, President Aquino’s spokesman, described it as “a warm, friendly congratulatory note” of a single page. At a news conference before departing this afternoon for Thailand, Mr. Weinberger said that his “very simple message” to the new Government had been that “we want to be as helpful as we could” toward the Philippines. Mrs. Aquino has said her country needs economic more than military aid.
The United States Ambassador to Mexico, John Gavin, announced today that he was resigning next month “to return to the private sector.” Mr. Gavin’s resignation marked the end of a five-year term in which he emerged as one of the most controversial and activist American envoys to Mexico in many years. Mr. Gavin, who made his resignation public in a letter to President Reagan and in a statement that he read to the embassy staff, announced no future plans, saying only that he felt that “after five years it is time to return to the private sector and meet new challenges.” Last year friends in California urged Mr. Gavin to run for the Senate seat held by Alan Cranston, a Democrat. Mr. Gavin, who turns 54 on Tuesday, said in an interview recently that he decided he did not have the “fire in the belly” needed for such a campaign and that should he leave the ambassadorship he would return to business.
After three days of at times heated discussions, negotiations to find a settlement to the conflicts of Central America broke up here this afternoon in a cloud of recriminations without any formal agreements being reached. In a disappointing end to what had been heralded as a major meeting of the so-called Contadora Group of Latin American countries, a string of Central American foreign ministers left Panama City exchanging condemnations for having failed to achieve concrete results. Representatives from El Salvador, Costa Rica and Honduras blamed Nicaragua for the breakdown in discussions, contending it had torpedoed hopes for peace by failing to sign a compromise agreement obligating all Central American countries to sign a final peace treaty by June 6.
Nicaragua’s 10 Roman Catholic bishops issued a statement today in which they replied sharply to recent government attacks. They also criticized the pro-Sandinista “People’s Church” in the strongest terms they have yet used. The war of words between the Catholic hierarchy and the government, under way since soon after the Sandinistas came to power in 1979, has intensified in recent weeks. The Sandinistas have charged that the bishops are stepping up their attacks on the government to help those in the United States who support the Reagan Administration’s proposal to send $100 million in aid to anti-Government rebels. The bishops have rejected the allegation. Two years ago the bishops called for discussions between the Sandinistas and the rebels. The government considers this position treasonous, and has demanded that the bishops explicitly condemn the rebel movement. “The church is accused of remaining silent, but it is itself silenced, its only radio station taken away and all news of the aggressions it suffers and every word in its defense censored in the press,” today’s statement by the bishops said.
A group of retired U.S. military men said they have agreed to Support Angolan rebel leader Holden Roberto with an initial sum of about $200,000 in non-lethal equipment and other supplies. Roberto, who is in Washington on a monthlong visit to seek aid, heads the small National Front for the Liberation of Angola, which was once backed by the CIA. A larger Angolan rebel group, Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, is already receiving U.S. covert aid. The group, called Civilian Military Assistance, last year provided $4 million in aid to the Nicaraguan contras. The group agreed to help Roberto after a weekend meeting in Memphis.
Five convicted murderers, including two rebels who killed two Americans and four other foreign tourists in southern Zimbabwe in 1982, were hanged today. The rebels, Gilbert Ngwenya, 44 years old, and Austin Mpofu, 27, were among other insurgents fighting the Government who abducted and later killed James Greenwell and Martin Hodson of England, Brett Baldwin and Kevin Ellis of the United States and Tony Bajzelj and William Butler of Australia. Others hanged today were Benson Dube and Swelibanzi Nzima, both sentenced to death in 1983 for killing a black policeman, and Potifa Runokunda, who killed a white couple in 1983.
Blacks resumed a consumer boycott in the South African city of Port Elizabeth, crippling some white-run businesses. Reports from shopkeepers said there were virtually no black customers. The boycott was suspended last November to give the government a chance to reform racial policies. Its supporters seek the withdrawal of troops and police from riot duty in black townships and the release of jailed anti-apartheid activists. Meanwhile, the white town council of George, in Cape province, fired 215 blacks who stayed away from work and said they will be sent to a tribal homeland and replaced with Colored (mixed-race) employees.
President Reagan signed legislation that makes permanent the 16-cents-a-pack federal tax on cigarettes and distributes billions of dollars from offshore oil revenues to the federal government and coastal states. The White House announced that Reagan signed the omnibus budget-reconciliation act shortly after he returned from a brief trip to Baltimore to watch the first game of baseball season. The complex package, designed to reduce deficits by $18 billion over the next three years, makes permanent a 10% cut in highway funds to states that allow drinking before age 21. It also contains a new tobacco price-support program, aid to workers who lose jobs due to imports, and Medicare cost-containment rules.
President Reagan meets with Representatives Fascell and Broomfield to discuss their recent trip to the Soviet Union.
In a draft report, the United States Commission on Civil Rights calls for a one-year suspension of Federal programs that reserve money or contracts for businesses owned by blacks, Hispanic Americans or women. These programs require the Government to set aside specified percentages of money or work for these businesses. In some of these set-aside programs, the percentage of money to be reserved for minorities or women is flexible and may be adjusted by Federal officials. Increase of Local Programs The 96-page report concludes: “We feel that minority set-asides have not, after many years, proven themselves effective, and we fear that significant reasons exist to judge them destructive.”
As Vice President Bush ended the first part of his four-nation tour of the Middle East today, he sought to end the confusion over his views on oil pricing. The confusion began last week when Mr. Bush said there must be “stability” in oil prices and the United States must “not just have a continued free fall” in prices. President Reagan’s position has been that market forces should determine prices. Today Mr. Bush and his staff tried to make sure they appeared to be in step with Administration policy. The Vice President, who met with Saudi leaders during the weekend, held a news conference in the Saudi oil town of Dhahran. He said, “We didn’t go in there trying to lean on somebody to do one thing or another.” From the Saudi viewpoint, “the stronger the price for international oil the better,” he said, adding, “That does not coincide with the best interest of the United States.” At the news conference, which followed a a two-and-a-half hour meeting with King Fahd, Mr. Bush said the interests of Saudi Arabia and the United States were “not identical” when it comes to oil prices. Unlike the Arab country, he said, the United States benefits “greatly from low prices and ought to be pleased.”
The collapse in the American oil industry from the sudden plunge of world oil prices is forcing drastic curtailment of government services throughout the energy-producing states. Teachers are being put out of work, and welfare, public health programs and police protection are being cut. Motorists stranded on Oklahoma roads, for example, cannot expect much help these days. To save gasoline, Highway Patrol troopers are under orders to limit travel to 100 miles a shift, so they are mostly “parked” along the highways. On Thursday, 4,000 Oklahoma schoolteachers will get layoff notices, and the following week the Department of Human Services will begin to furlough nearly 9,000 workers without pay for at least one day a month.
The South’s political power should increase now that a regional “Super Tuesday” primary is a reality for 1988, proponents of the concept say. A regional primary is now a reality for 1988, adding a major new element to Presidential politics. Nine Southern and border states are to hold their primaries on the same date, and at least four others are expected to join them. The contests are planned for the second Tuesday in March, two weeks after the New Hampshire primary. Southern political leaders hope the timing will be early enough to give the region a major role in choosing the Republican and Democratic nominees.
As the espionage trial of Jerry A. Whitworth entered its third week here today, Federal prosecutors were shifting the focus of evidence from the defendant to the key Government witness, John A. Walker Jr. Mr. Walker has confessed that he headed a spy ring that sold information to the Soviet Union and to which Mr. Whitworth is accused of belonging. The testimony by Federal agents regarding the investigation and arrest of Mr. Walker, a former friend of Mr. Whitworth’s, is aimed at setting the stage for testimony by Mr. Walker against the defendant. Mr. Walker is expected to take the stand next week and his testimony is expected to take two weeks. Because Mr. Whitworth’s case is considered the weakest of four Federal cases, Mr. Walker’s testimony is crucial to the Government’s attempt to prove that Mr. Whitworth used his top-secret clearance as a Navy radioman to copy or photograph sensitive Navy documents and coding materials over 10 years and pass them to Mr. Walker in exchange for at least $332,000. Mr. Walker, 48 years old, a former Navy warrant officer, pleaded guilty to espionage last October in Baltimore and has been given two concurrent life sentences. His son, Michael L. Walker, 22, a Navy yeoman, also pleaded guilty. As part of a plea agreement, John Walker will testify against Mr. Whitworth, who retired from the Navy in 1983, in exchange for a reduced sentence for Michael Walker.
A jury was seated in New Orleans for the second trial of Louisiana Governor Edwin W. Edwards on charges that he schemed illegally to use his influence to obtain state certification for hospital and nursing home projects in which he held interests. The selection of nine men and three women jurors — eight blacks and four whites — cleared the way for opening arguments in the trial of Edwards and four co-defendants.
James Ramseur, one of four teenagers shot by Bernhard H. Goetz on a New York subway, was convicted of raping and sodomizing a 20-year-old Bronx neighbor. Sentencing was set for April 28. Convicted after a two-week-long jury trial, he faces 12 ½ to 25 years in prison. Goetz wounded the four youths in December, 1984, because, he said, he feared that they were going to attack him. Goetz is facing three weapons charges and a charge of reckless endangerment in connection with the shootings.
Field tests of a gene-altered vaccine were approved without enough review, the Department of Agriculture’s chief science policy administrator said. Dr. Orville G. Bentley, Assistant Secretary for Science and Education, said the application submitted by Omaha-based Biologics Corporation, to field test and market a gene-altered viral vaccine, should have been brought before the department’s Recombinant DNA Research Committee, which was established eight years ago to review research and field tests of living gene-altered products.
Stephen M. Bingham went on trial in California, charged with smuggling a gun into San Quentin Prison in 1971 that was used in an uprising in which six people, including George Jackson, a member of the Black Panther Party, died. A Marin County prosecutor asserted that he would prove with circumstantial evidence that Mr. Bingham, a Yale-educated lawyer from Connecticut, who participated in the radical movement of the 1960’s, had smuggled the gun.
A Presidential commission urged the Pentagon today to make a fundamental change in its procurement, buying more ready-made items in the commercial market instead of having them made to order. “When a ‘make or buy’ decision must be made, the presumption should be to buy,” the commission on military management said. The commission recommended that the Pentagon reverse its current practice of ordering almost everything from boot laces to fighter planes according to its own specifications, which adds undetermined costs. The proposal was among the recommendations from President Reagan’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, headed by former Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard. A panel headed by William J. Perry, a former Under Secretary of Defense, wrote the report on buying.
The secretary of the Air Force is resigning for “family reasons” after only four months on the job, according to Pentagon and congressional sources who requested anonymity. Russell A. Rourke, who was an assistant secretary of defense for congressional liaison before taking the Air Force post, had helped to smooth the Pentagon’s occasionally rocky relations with Congress. His resignation is expected to be announced today. No replacement has been named.
A jury of 10 women and two men was told in Alexandria, Virginia, that Richard Craig Smith, a former Army counterintelligence officer and Mormon missionary, sold information about several American double agents to the Soviet Union for $11,000. But Smith’s attorney, Brent Carruth, said that his client gave the Soviets nothing but “old sludge chickenfeed” while he was working secretly for the CIA, and that now the American spy agency is “leaving Mr. Smith out to dry. Smith is charged with one Count of conspiracy and two of espionage.
Robert L. Moore Jr., who, under the pen name Robin Moore, wrote “The French Connection” and “The Green Berets” and helped to write “The Happy Hooker,” pleaded guilty in federal court in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to selling fraudulent literary tax shelters. Moore, 61, of Westport, could face a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine when he is sentenced July 1, authorities said. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
A consumer organization asked the government to restore tougher standards for automobile bumpers so that bumpers can withstand accidents at speeds up to 5 mph. Consumers Union petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to restore the standard, which was reduced to 2.5 mph in 1982. It said that the relaxed standard has resulted in “tissue-paper bumpers.” Consumers Union said that the reduced standard also caused car-repair bills ranging from $146 to $1,081.
An exit on Interstate 44 was once called “Lewis Road-Times Beach.” Now it reads merely “Lewis Road.” There is no Times Beach anymore, at least not as it was as recently as 1982, when 2,242 people lived there and it was a placid community along the Meramec River in St. Louis County. Now Times Beach, like Love Canal in New York, has become a symbol of the havoc that can be wrought when toxic waste contaminates a community.
A Sabena Airlines jetliner bound for Boston from Detroit with 78 people aboard dropped suddenly when it hit an air pocket today, slamming passengers and food trays into the cabin ceiling and injuring at least 11 passengers and a flight attendant, none seriously. The plane, which hit the turbulence about 45 minutes before landing at Logan International Airport, carried 70 passengers and a crew of 8. A spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates the airport, said the injured suffered “bruises, bumps, lacerations, and neck and back injuries.”
Volunteers began setting up stands in 2,800 shopping malls across the United States and Canada yesterday in a campaign to fingerprint 10 million children to protect them against abduction. Albert Sussman, who is directing the program for the New York-based International Council of Shopping Centers, said the only copy of the prints is given to parents or guardians. The prints could provide identification if a child is abducted or harmed.
In four years, U.S. deaths from AIDS will reach 80,000 annually, eight times the number reported in 1985, a researcher predicts. Donald Francis of the national Centers for Disease Control office in Berkeley said one quarter of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome fatalities, or about 20,000, will be heterosexuals. “And this is mostly just the backlog of people infected already,” Francis said. With a major prevention program, he said, “deaths from AIDS will probably level off at 10,000 a year by the end of the century.”
Activists marching for nuclear disarmament remained camped just inside the California border, waiting for organizers to clear up permit requirements in Nevada, a spokesman said. The Great Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament now plans to cross into Nevada Wednesday from a campsite just 400 yards inside the California state line, said spokesman Ben Zeman. “We had some problems with permits and getting the [camping] sites established,” Zeman said. The 225 would-be marchers remained camped along Interstate 15.
WrestleMania II at 3 locations: Hulk Hogan beats King Kong Bundy; Mr. T beats Roddy Piper in a boxing match.
Major League Baseball:
Opening Day for Major League Baseball.
President Ronald Reagan throws out the first pitch and the Baltimore Orioles opener draws a crowd of 52,292, the largest regular-season in Orioles history. But Cleveland’s new addition Ken Schrom throws a damper on the day as he beats the Birds, 6–4. In his Major League debut, Andy Allison is 3-for-4. Mel Hall drove in two runs with a double and a sacrifice fly and Schrom scattered eight hits over seven innings to lead Cleveland over Baltimore before a Memorial Stadium record crowd of 52,292.
Ernest Riles belted a two-run homer and Rob Deer hit a bases-empty shot onto the roof off Tom Seaver to give Milwaukee a 5–3 victory over the Chicago White Sox. Teddy Higuera, a 15-game winner in his rookie season last year, scattered seven hits through seven innings before a crowd of 42,375, fifth-largest Opening Day crowd in Comiskey Park history. Mark Clear got the final two outs for the save. Seaver, extending his major-league record in making his 16th Opening Day start, lost only his second of them.
The Cincinnati Reds got off to a rousing start, beating the Philadelphia Phillies, 7–4. Mario Soto, the Reds’ starting pitcher, received his fifth consecutive Opening Day assignment, tying a club record set from 1923 to 1927 by Pete Donohue. Soto lasted long enough to gain the victory, although he allowed three runs in the first inning. Steve Carlton, the 41-year-old Philadelphia pitcher in his 21st season, had a difficult afternoon, raising concerns that his glorious career may be nearing an end. He failed to get an out in the fifth inning and allowed nine hits and seven runs before leaving. He took the loss.
On Opening Day at Tiger Stadium, Boston’s Dwight Evans achieves a Major League first by hitting a home run off Jack Morris on the first pitch of the season. But Detroit’s Kirk Gibson later hits 2 homers, adds two singles and drives in 5 runs to lead the Tigers to a 6–5 victory. Gibson’s winning homer came in the seventh inning off reliever Sammy Stewart after Lou Whitaker had singled. Jack Morris was shaky through the first seven innings for Detroit, giving up five runs — four of them homers — on 12 hits. But he got his sixth Opening Day victory and Willie Hernández earned the save. Dwight Evans drilled Morris’s first pitch into the centerfield seats and Jim Rice hit a homer in the third. The Tigers got a run back in the bottom of the third when Darnell Coles singled, Lou Whitaker walked and Gibson singled. Detroit erased Boston’s 2–1 lead with three runs in the fourth. Darrell Evans started the rally with a single and scored on a triple by Dave Collins. Gibson then smashed the next pitch by the starter Bruce Hurst high into the upper deck in center field. With two out in the top of the seventh, Rice singled and scored on a game-tying homer by Don Baylor. Rich Gedman followed with a bases-empty home run, giving Boston its final, brief lead.
The Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela survived 10 hits by San Diego and rode Mike Marshall’s seventh-inning home run to a 2–1 victory for Los Angeles over the Padres. The Los Angeles victory before a sellout crowd of 49,444 at Dodger Stadium spoiled the San Diego managerial debut of Steve Boros, named to succeed Dick Williams at the beginning of spring training after Williams abruptly resigned. Valenzuela, making his fourth straight Opening Day start and fifth in six years, walked one and struck out nine.
Cleveland Indians 6, Baltimore Orioles 4
Milwaukee Brewers 5, Chicago White Sox 3
Philadelphia Phillies 4, Cincinnati Reds 7
Boston Red Sox 5, Detroit Tigers 6
San Diego Padres 1, Los Angeles Dodgers 2
The correction that began last week on Wall Street continued yesterday, but the decline in stock prices was not nearly as steep despite another increase in the cost of crude oil. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had a record decline of 82.50 points last week, fell another 3.71 points yesterday, to 1,735.51. Market analysts attributed the stock market’s recent volatility to the turnaround in oil prices. Yesterday started out with the same pattern. Oil prices were up, so the Dow was down as many as 21 points during the session. But a recovery took place late in the afternoon in the stock market, and at one point just before the close the blue-chip indicator actually moved briefly into the plus column.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1735.51 (-3.71)
Born:
Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, NFL cornerback (Pro Bowl, 2009, 2015; Arizona Cardinals, Philadelphia Eagles, Denver Broncos, New York Giants, Oakland Raiders, Washington Redskins), in Bradentown, Florida.
Ashlee Palmer, NFL linebacker (Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions), in Los Angeles, California.
Chia-Jen Lo, Taiwanese MLB pitcher (Houston Astros), in Pingtung County, Taiwan.
Brooke “Brookers” Brodack, American internet celebrity and one of the earliest YouTube stars, in Holden, Massachusetts.
Died:
Leonid Kantorovich, 74, Russian Soviet economist (Father of linear programming, Nobel Prize for Economics 1975).
History Diaries 