The United States said today that the Soviet Union might have smothered the fire that raged for the last five days at a nuclear reactor in the Ukraine. In addition, a French communications satellite took pictures today that suggested the fire might have been smothered, a report from Sweden said. “We cannot see the smoke which we saw Wednesday,” said Lars Bjerkesjo of Satellitbild, the company that received the picture at a land station in northern Sweden, according to a report by The Associated Press. “It appears the fire has decreased.” The accident at the Chernobyl reactor, 70 miles north of Kiev, spewed radioactive material into the atmosphere that has drifted into many European countries. The accident apparently began last Friday, but it became known outside the Soviet Union only Monday.
A day after it predicted that the severely damaged reactor might continue to burn for weeks, an American interagency panel said this afternoon that the latest Air Force reconnaissance photos made it “plausible” that the Soviet Union had put out the fire, as Moscow contended Wednesday. But the group said it lacked definitive evidence to make a firm conclusion. American officials said special Soviet civil-defense forces, in helicopters, had been observed dropping material, believed to be wet sand, over the fire into the graphite that encased the nuclear fuel rods in the reactor. The interagency panel also said it could not confirm speculation that there was damage to a second reactor at the Chernobyl plant. Panel members said a possible “hot spot” close to the burned reactor was not another reactor but some other industrial building. There are four reactors at the plant at Pripyat, 12 miles northwest of Chernobyl.
The Kremlin maintained that the situation at the damaged nuclear station was under control. The Soviet Government augmented its casualty report to add that 18 people were in “serious condition.” A statement by the Government said radioactivity in the nuclear plant and in the adjacent town of Pripyat was down by 33 to 50 percent, but it did not specify actual radiation levels or the period over which the decline was supposed to have occurred. While people across the country celebrated May Day with parades, the fourth statement issued by the Government added little information about exactly what happened at the Chernobyl plant, 70 miles north of Kiev, causing radioactive debris to spread across northern Europe.
The Soviet Union yesterday accepted an offer of help in treating victims of the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl atomic power plant. The acceptance of the offer, from an international bone marrow transplant organization, seemed to confirm suggestions in the West that there had been serious radiation injuries. Aside from immediate death, bone marrow failure is the most serious consequence of exposure to heavy radiation. Total bone marrow failure is virtually certain to cause death unless a bone marrow transplant can be done. The acceptance came from the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., said Dr. Robert Peter Gale, chairman of the group’s advisory committee. Dr. Gale said he would leave immediately for Moscow, where he planned to meet with Soviet doctors to determine what needs to be done. Since the first disclosure of the accident at the Chernobyl plant last weekend, several American experts have speculated that there might be cases of bone marrow failure among the victims if there was a major release of penetrating gamma radiation. It was because of that possibility that the transplant group, the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry, offered help.
American intelligence agencies, despite their ability to take satellite photographs and intercept communications, learned of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant only from a Soviet announcement, according to Reagan Administration spokesmen. An intelligence source said there were indications of unusual activity in the Kiev area by Sunday, but it was not clear what was happening. Robert Sims, the Pentagon spokesman, said the United States had learned of the incident from the first Soviet Government statement Monday and had not withheld any prior information. He said “the intelligence work on our part has been excellent.”
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who helped dismantle a damaged nuclear reactor in the 1950’s, said today that reports of thousands of deaths from the accident in the Soviet Union were probably greatly exaggerated. Mr. Carter told reporters at a conference on health issues in developing nations that the Soviet representative, Anatoly E. Romaneko, health minister for the Ukraine, would have left early if many people had been killed. In 1952, Mr. Carter, as a Navy officer in a nuclear submarine program, helped repair the world’s first damaged nuclear reactor, in Canada.
Winds blowing from the stricken Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Ukraine carried a scattering of fallout over southern Europe today. But the shift in weather patterns left the skies over Scandinavia free of artificial radioactivity. In Sweden, where the detection of radioactive fallout first alerted the outside world to the Soviet accident, radiation levels today were essentially back to normal. But Government scientists maintained their alert during the May Day holiday, and it appeared that the stream of fallout would return to Scandinavia next Monday or Tuesday. A meteorologist, Kerstin Wendt of the National Institute of Radiation Protection, said a high-pressure region over central Europe was now driving a clockwise circulation of wind that was carrying fallout over Yugoslavia, Greece, Rumania and other southern European countries. France, West Germany, Switzerland and Austria have also reported increased atmospheric radioactivity. But as the center of the high-pressure region moves eastward, she said, winds from Chernobyl will probably swing northwestward again, bringing the fallout path over Scandinavia.
Millions of people worldwide took part in May Day observances that in Poland and several other countries were marred by antigovernment demonstrations and clashes with police. In Warsaw, riot police attacked a pro-Solidarity crowd that left a church after a May Day Mass. There were other clashes between demonstrators and police in Paraguay and Chile.
As a first lieutenant in the German Army in World War II, Kurt Waldheim kept his army group’s daybook, which recorded Hitler’s order to kill captured partisans in Greece and send suspected resistance fighters to labor camps, according to German war documents. The record, kept on a daily basis, was written by Mr. Waldheim from July 19 to Aug. 21, 1943, while he was assigned to the German General Staff liaison attached to the Italian 11th Army in northwest Greece, according to a cover index of the daybook that bears Mr. Waldheim’s name. These and other German war documents, found in the National Archives in Washington, reveal new details of Mr. Waldheim’s wartime service in the Balkans from 1942 to 1945. Mr. Waldheim’s war record has become an issue in his campaign for the presidential election in Austria on Sunday. Although the documents have been in the public domain since at least the mid-1960’s, it was only when it came to light that Mr. Waldheim, the former United Nations Secretary General, served in the Balkans that researchers investigated that part of his wartime service. Before that Mr. Waldheim had maintained in two memoirs and his official United Nations biography that he served on the Eastern front until he was wounded in 1941, then finished his law studies in Vienna.
After a night of arson and rioting in at least 20 British prisons, the British Government announced today that it was prepared to move prison inmates to military camps rather than back down in a dispute over staffing levels with the union that represents prison warders. The widespread violence apparently came as a result of a refusal by the warders to work any overtime shifts, an action that their union, the Prison Officers Association, had promised would have “extensive and highly disruptive” results. The consequences, including mass breakouts from some low-security institutions and extensive damage to prisons in England and Wales, apparently far exceeded the expectations of the union’s leaders, who announced this morning that they were suspending their protest.
Prison guards in Britain called off a labor protest that sparked a night of rioting and arson at 18 prisons. About a dozen of the 40 convicts who escaped from one prison amid the turmoil remained at large. The disturbances erupted after prison officials cut back inmates’ privileges because guards refused to work overtime at 134 prisons in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The guards ended their protest on the advice of their union to allow “constructive talks” to begin.
A dozen Soviet teenagers will attend a private New England prep school next year under a tentative exchange agreement that provides for a dozen American students to study at an “elite boarding school” in Siberia, U.S. officials announced. Stephen H. Rhinesmith of the U.S. Information Agency, who coordinated the cultural and educational exchange agreements signed at the Geneva summit last November, said rotating groups of four students from the Siberian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk will attend the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, for 10 weeks of study each, starting next fall.
Israel called on Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar today to “take immediate steps necessary to insure free access of the general public” to secret files on 40,000 war criminals, suspects, and witnesses to atrocities during World War II. The request, in a letter presented to Mr. Perez de Cuellar by the chief Israeli delegate, Benjamin Netanyahu, follows a refusal two weeks ago by the United Nations to give Israel open access to the files, which were collected from 1943 to 1948 by the United Nations War Crimes Commission in London. The commission collected evidence from the governments of its 18 members, investigated the charges and created files on individuals, classifying them according to culpability. Its records are in the United Nations archives.
Shiite Muslim guerrillas said today that they had killed seven militiamen of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army in an attack on an army position. The Israeli said one Shiite was killed and five army members were wounded. Three wounded Army members were captured, the Iranian-backed Shiite guerrillas and the Israeli radio reported. The Shiite guerrillas said in a statement that about 40 guerrillas attacked a South Lebanon Army position in Loussia, a southern Lebanese village 13 miles northwest of the border with Israel. The police said the Army retaliated by shelling the nearby Bekaa villages of Yohmor, Qillaya and Zillaya, and that four civilians were wounded when a shell hit a house in Yohmor. The Shiite Muslim guerrillas were members of the Islamic Resistance Movement, a name believed used by the Party of God, which leads anti-Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.
President Babrak Karmal of Afghanistan returned home today after undergoing medical treatment in the Soviet Union, ending speculation that he had been removed from power. Mr. Karmal, who heads the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan and the governing Revolutionary Council, arrived in the Afghan capital of Kabul on a special plane from Moscow, the official Kabul radio announced in a broadcast monitored in Islamabad. There was much speculation about Mr. Karmal’s whereabouts after he failed to appear at key revolutionary celebrations in Kabul on Sunday. Mr. Karmal, 57 years old, went to the Soviet Union on March 30 on what was described as a private visit and nothing had been heard of him since. His absence at the revolutionary celebrations was seen by some as a sign that Mr. Karmal could be in political trouble and that the Soviet Union was unhappy with him.
After two weeks of huge and emotional rallies, Benazir Bhutto has made herself the standard-bearer for anti-Government feelings in Pakistan but has failed to stir much support within the Parliament for her demand that elections be held this year. As a result, many of Miss Bhutto’s supporters are now saying that she will have to step up the pressure on the Government, most probably by organizing a mass agitation or strike as early as this summer. “Simply collecting these crowds cannot bring a change,” said Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, a prominent leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, of which Miss Bhutto is acting chairman. “She will have to insist that elections be announced by a certain date, and if they are not, to start a real agitation.”
A force of nearly 2,000 paramilitary police completed a 12-hour operation this morning to regain control of the Golden Temple at Amritsar, India from several hundred Sikh radicals. But police officials said almost all the major radical leaders managed to escape. The police officials who conducted the raid on the Sikh religion’s holiest shrine, the second major armed intervention by the Government at the temple in two years, said one civilian was killed and two were wounded. They said most of the 300 radicals who were arrested did not not resist.
More than 300 people are feared dead in three days of fighting between rival Sri Lankan guerrilla groups, the state-run press agency said today. The agency, quoting security sources, gave no breakdown of the casualties in clashes between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization that have shaken northern and eastern Sri Lanka since Tuesday. The police earlier estimated that 200 people had been killed in the clashes. The two groups are among five major guerrilla organizations that have battled security forces for three years in a drive to set up an independent Tamil state.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda dissolved Parliament and called for new elections after legislators rejected a finance package in what amounted to a vote of no confidence. Prem scheduled general elections for July 27, nine months ahead of time, according to a government spokesman. The political crisis came during the opening session of the 324-seat Parliament after dissidents in the ruling coalition sided with the opposition to reject a bill that would have raised taxes on gas- and diesel-powered vehicles. Under the Thai system, such a defeat is considered a virtual no-confidence vote.
President Reagan meets with President Suharto of Indonesia at the Putri Bali Hotel.
President Reagan participates in a meeting with all foreign ministers from A.S.E.A.N.
Meetings in Indonesia were tense, according to aides to President Reagan. They said that points of disagreement in a meeting between Mr. Reagan and Vice President Salvador H. Laurel of the Philippines included American financial aid and the depth of Washington’s support for the new Manila Government, particularly in connection with the deposed President, Ferdinand E. Marcos. Differences were also apparent as Mr. Reagan met with all six members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on trade frictions.
President Reagan met for the first time today with a high-ranking representative of the new Philippine Government, and American officials said afterward that the encounter here had been marked by disagreements. The officials said the points of disgreement with Vice President Salvador H. Laurel included such key issues as financial aid and the depth of United States support for the new Manila Government, particularly in connection with the deposed President, Ferdinand E. Marcos. Tension was also apparent today as Mr. Reagan met with all six members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in a session that focused on trade frictions. The members of ASEAN constitute a bloc that is the fifth largest trade partner of the United States.
Riot police officers firing tear gas and using water hoses tonight dispersed thousands of demonstrators loyal to former President Ferdinand E. Marcos in Manila. Hospital spokesmen said 33 people were injured, 2 with gunshot wounds. The police said 60 people were seized for interrogation, In scattering the demonstrators, the police demolished a two-week-old encampment set up by Marcos loyalists across the street from the American Embassy.
Greeted by thousands of flag-waving fans, the Prince and Princess of Wales began a seven-day visit to mark the opening of the Expo ’86 World’s Fair. The royal couple arrived Wednesday at Victoria airport for a 30-minute drive to a formal welcoming ceremony at the British Columbia legislative buildings. They were greeted by Lieutenant Governor Robert G. Rogers and Premier William Bennett. “It is a particular pleasure to be able to introduce my wife to this great Pacific province and let her see for herself what a warm, hearty lot you all are,” said the Prince.
A Salvadoran military transport plane carrying 37 soldiers burst into flames a few minutes after takeoff from Ilopango air base on the outskirts of San Salvador, slammed into a hill and exploded, killing all aboard. Military officials, who blamed the crash on mechanical problems, said the DC-6 was carrying military technicians to Panama for training. The crash was called one of the worst aviation accidents in El Salvador’s history.
A crowd of workers estimated at 15,000 to 25,000 marched through the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador today in a demonstration of growing trade union activity and broad popular discontent with Government policies. The march was held in recognition of May Day, but quickly became a forum for expressing criticism of the Government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte and of the United States. A sharpening political battle for control of the trade union movement has pitted the Government against centrist unions critical of Mr. Duarte and other unions that are openly sympathetic to the rebel Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.
Ugandan soldiers loyal to General Tito Okello attacked 17 Ugandan refugee camps in southern Sudan, killing an undetermined number of people, raping women and burning huts, Radio Uganda reported. The state-owned radio said the attacks occurred early this week. Okello was ousted in January by the National Resistance Army, which installed Yoweri Museveni as president. Members of the Madi tribe, which has been accused of collaborating with Okello’s foes, occupy many of the Sudanese camps.
About 1.5 million blacks stayed away from work today in what labor specialists called the biggest strike ever witnessed in South Africa. The stoppage was called to press demands for an official May Day public holiday and seemed a reflection of the growing readiness of militant labor unions to become embroiled in political activism. Many black schools were also deserted as pupils boycotted classes in support of the strike. In Port Elizabeth, residents said, the stoppage was nearly total, forcing whites to undertake menial tasks normally left to blacks, such as cooking in restaurants, pumping gasoline and repairing burst water pipes.
The Senate early today overwhelmingly approved a $1 trillion budget for 1987 that would reduce President Reagan’s request for the military by $19 billion and raise revenues by $13.1 billion, $7 billion more than Mr. Reagan had proposed. The bipartisan vote was 70 to 25, with 32 Republicans and 38 Democrats voting for the plan. At $1,001.2 billion, it would be the first budget to total more than $1 trillion. It was also the first budget in the Reagan era to win bipartisan approval in the Republican-controlled Senate and could, therefore, set the tone for action in the House, which is expected to begin writing its budget plan next week. The compromise effort, which gave more to the military and raised revenues less than the Senate Budget Committee plan, was a last-ditch effort to get a 1987 budget through the Senate. “We either do this or we do nothing,” Senator Pete V. Domenici, the chairman of the Budget Committee, warned Thursday just before midnight. The compromise was assembled by Mr. Domenici of New Mexico and the Budget Committee’s ranking Democrat, Lawton Chiles of Florida. The Senate Republican leader, Bob Dole of Kansas, supported the proposal after working for two weeks for a package with a smaller revenue increase and more cuts in domestic programs. In the end, however, he could not get the Republican votes he wanted for his plan and said, “I’d want to support anything that goes out of here.” Mr. Dole quoted Donald T. Regan, the President’s chief of staff, as saying that Mr. Reagan, who opposed the Budget Committee plan, also opposed the compromise plan and would “express disappointment” in a statement. But Mr. Dole said the statement would also reflect the President’s “appreciation” that the Senate had acted.
President Reagan has warned Congress not to infringe on his authority as Commander in Chief as it votes on legislation to reorganize the Defense Department. In a message to Capitol Hill, Mr. Reagan also cautioned Congress not to crimp the flexibility of the Secretary of Defense to organize the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the operational combatant commands. Noting that more that 40 Congressional committees and subcommittees claim jurisdiction over a variety of military issues, Mr. Reagan urged Congress “to return to a more orderly process involving a few key committees to oversee the defense program.” The message to Congress was Mr. Reagan’s first direct entry into the running battle on Capitol Hill over the organization of the Pentagon. To date, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger and other officials have presented the Administration’s case.
Representative Peter W. Rodino Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, today postponed action on a bill to curtail illegal immigration. The move appeared to reduce chances for adoption of the measure in this session of Congress. The committee had been scheduled to take up the legislation next week. Mr. Rodino, a New Jersey Democrat, said he was deferring it until the second week of June at the request of 16 of the 21 Democrats on the committee.
AIDS is the third leading cause of death and the No. 1 killer of men aged 20 to 54 in New York City, a health official reported. “It’s cancer, heart disease, AIDS” in New York, said Alan Kristal of the city’s Department of Health. “And it’s the leading cause of death for men 40 to 44, higher than heart disease,” he said in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. Although the figures for New York are atypical of the nation as a whole, Kristal said they should serve as a warning of what may happen.
Six church activists plotted to smuggle Central American aliens into the United States, a Federal jury in Tucson, Ariz., found. The panel acquitted five other defendants of the conspiracy charge. The jury deliberated 47 hours over nine days. After the verdict, the prosecutor said the Justice Department would continue to prosecute such alien-smuggling cases, and defendants, who had stressed their religious convictions through the long trial, said they would continue their help to Central Americans.
Prosecutors in the espionage trial of Richard E. Miller, a former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, today challenged a Russian woman’s testimony that he never gave her classified documents or wanted to work for the Soviet Union. The woman was Svetlana Ogorodnikov, a defense witness who pleaded guilty last June 26 to spying for the Soviet Union. Today she said in cross-examination that at that time she did not want to admit in open court that she had received documents from Mr. Miller and added that she had asked the judge to keep her admission secret to protect her family in the Soviet Union. The defense lawyers asked for a mistrial, saying they had never known about that, but Federal District Judge David Kenyon denied the motion.
John A. Walker Jr., who has confessed he headed a Soviet spy ring, testified today that he told Jerry A. Whitworth that if he continued to alter his career plans without first informing the buyers of the classified Navy data he was passing both men might be killed. Mr. Walker said his Soviet contacts were upset by Mr. Whitworth’s sudden retirement from the Navy in 1983 without completing his planned tour of duty on the aircraft carrier Enterprise. Mr. Walker today completed his direct testimony, which continued over three and a half days, as the Government’s star witness in the espionage case against Mr. Whitworth. Mr. Whitworth, a former Navy colleague of Mr. Walker, is accused of passing classified Navy cryptographic material to Mr. Walker, who sold it to the Soviet Union.
The school board of Indianola, Mississippi, appointed a black superintendent in a move expected to bring an end to a five-week boycott of white businesses in the predominantly black Delta town. Robert Merritt, a school principal, will replace W.A. Grissom, a white. Willie Spurlock, who led the boycott, said the resignation cleared the way to end the boycott, which caused the closing of three businesses and the temporary shutdown of the schools.
Attorneys for Louisiana Governor Edwin W. Edwards and four co-defendants asked a judge in New Orleans to strike testimony from two witnesses, arguing it was hearsay allowed only because federal prosecutors misled the court to expect backup testimony from a key figure. Edwards, his brother, Marion, and three business associates are accused of racketeering and fraud in a nursing home and hospital investment venture.
NASA’s first attempt to launch a rocket since the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28 was postponed when liquid fuel was detected leaking from a Delta rocket hours before it was scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it was postponing the launching for 48 hours, until Saturday afternoon, so it could trace the source of the leak. Officials said it appeared to come from near an engine valve in the first stage of the rocket.
A disabled machinist from West Virginia who was awaiting a heart transplant received a Jarvik-7 artificial heart today after doctors determined he had little time left to live. The machinist, George Howard Nicholas, 42 years old, of Elkview, West Virginia, received the mechanical pump in seven hours of emergency surgery at Presbyterian-University Hospital in Pittsburgh. “The implant went smoothly,” said a hospital spokesman, Tom Chakurda. Mr. Nicholas was in critical condition in the hospital’s surgical care unit, considered normal after implant surgery, according to Mr. Chakurda. Mr. Nicholas had been suffering from cardiomyopathy, a degeneration of the heart muscle.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is looking into allegations that a former senior official in the office, now a lobbyist for Michael K. Deaver, former White House deputy chief of staff, contacted her former colleagues on behalf of Deaver’s foreign clients, a spokesman said. Doral S. Cooper, who resigned her $72,300-a-year post last August, is covered by the federal law that prohibits senior officials from lobbying their former agencies for one year, ethics officials said. But a Deaver spokesman said a report in the Washington Times that Cooper had lobbied her former agency was “absolutely false.”
Florida’s 13,000 pharmacists today became the first in the nation to be allowed to write prescriptions, but many of them, fearing lawsuits, said they would ignore the new authority. The law, which doctors strongly opposed, enables pharmacists to prescribe more than 30 drugs for minor ailments. Some pharmacies required pharmacists to undergo special training before the law took effect. Others, such as Sunset Drugs in south Miami, will not prescribe drugs. “We are not physicians,” said Herbert Margolis, the owner of Sunset.
Some runaway Texas races and the state’s lagging economy appear to be dimming voter interest as Texans prepare for statewide primaries tomorrow. The most visible races are the two gubernatorial primaries, and the main question is whether a former Governor, Bill Clements, a Republican, and Governor Mark White, a Democrat, will get more than 50 percent of the votes in their party contests and avoid a runoff.
The Pentagon will soon announce a decision whether to proceed with a program costing more than $20 billion to develop a new type of “tilt-rotor” aircraft, Pentagon officials said today. Pentagon officials said Deputy Defense Secretary William H. Taft 4th had not disclosed a formal decision on the program, but they said the general drift in recent Pentagon meetings was that the program should go forward, with some steps taken to control costs. Most of the planes are to be bought by the Marine Corps, which has declared the aircraft, the Osprey, its most important new program. The plane’s primary purpose would be to carry troops ashore in amphibious assaults.
Scientists said they have found a molecular “missing link” confirming that the balding condition that shines the scalps of millions of men is tied to excessive activity of male hormones. The University of Miami team reported that oil glands in scalps struck by male-pattern baldness have molecules, called receptors, with 50% to 100% greater capacity for binding the ingredients of the male hormone testosterone. The receptor process short-circuits hair growth but how this happens is not yet clear, said Dr. Marty Sawaya of the school’s department of dermatology. It is uncertain whether the finding will lead to a drug to combat baldness, she said.
Heavy drinkers are almost three times as likely as nondrinkers to have the kind of stroke that is most often fatal, and people who cut down on their drinking can reduce their risk significantly, researchers say. Heavy alcohol consumption has been suspected before of contributing to strokes, which trail heart disease and cancer as the leading causes of death among Americans, said researchers of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Christa McAuliffe, the teacher aboard the space shuttle Challenger, was buried in Concord, New Hampshire today in a private family service. A Roman Catholic service at the Calvary Cemetery in Concord was conducted by the Rev. James Leary, her cousin who married her to Steven McAuliffe in 1970, said Michael Callahan, a family spokesman. Mrs. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old mother of two, and the six other crew members were killed January 28 when the Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after it was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. “The family conveys its deep gratitude to all who respected its privacy in these moments,” Mr. Callahan said in a statement after the service.
The first Staples Office Superstore opened in Brighton, Massachusetts.
Major League Baseball:
The Atlanta Braves coasted tonight to put an end to a New York Mets’ winning streak that had reached 11 and was just one short of establishing a club record. Atlanta clubs four homers and Zane Smith strikes out 12 batters as the Braves beat the Mets 7–2, ending New York’s club-record-tying 11-game winning streak. This is the only loss for the Mets in a 19-game span. Rick Aguilera, making his first start in 10 days, served up four home runs in three and one-third innings, including three in the third, to Bob Horner, Ozzie Virgil and Glenn Hubbard. And the offense was a meek match for Zane Smith, the Atlanta left-hander, who struck out a career-high 12 and now leads the National League with 38. Three of the Mets’ four losses this season have come against left-handers, but Smith is not the overpowering type. He kept them off-balance, striking out Darryl Strawberry three times, twice with men in scoring position.
The Boston Red Sox crushed the Seattle Mariners, 12–2. Wade Boggs hit a two-run homer and Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd yielded nine hits as Boston extended Seattle’s losing streak to six games. Bill Buckner capped Boston’s five-run fourth inning with a two-run double and Steve Lyons drove in two runs with a single and a triple as the Red Sox completed a sweep of the three-game series with the Mariners. Boggs, Lyons and Marty Barrett had three hits apiece in leading Boston. Boyd allowed Steve Yeager’s first American League homer in the fifth and struck out five and walked one. The Mariners struck out 41 times in the three games, setting a major-league record of 36 in the first two.
For the second day in a row, the Dodgers beat the Cubs, 4–0. Yesterday’ winner was Bob Welch with a complete game win; today the W goes to Rick Honeycutt. Honeycutt pitched
a six-hitter over 8 ⅓ innings and Mariano Duncan singled in two runs and scored one as Los Angeles earned its second straight shutout and fifth consecutive victory Honeycutt, 1–2, earned his first victory in five starts this season. He struck out two and walked two. After allowing two hits in the ninth, Tom Niedenfuer relieved Honeycutt with one out and picked up his third save.
Moose Haas limited his former teammates to six hits in eight innings today to become the major league’s first five-game winner, and the Oakland A’s got two-run homers from Dwayne Murphy and Jose Canseco to defeat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7–2. Haas, acquired from the Brewers before the start of the season, struck out one and walked two in raising his record to 5–0. Bill Mooneyham pitched the ninth inning for Oakland. Tim Leary (2–2) was the loser, giving up five runs and seven hits in five innings. Canseco’s sixth home run of the season gave Oakland a 5-2 lead in the fifth. The two-run opposite-field shot with Murphy on base gave the 21-year-old rookie 21 runs batted in for the season.
The game turned on the foul pop a rookie catcher did not catch, but the Yankees’ 7–4 loss to the Minnesota Twins last night revealed troubles of a more deep-seated nature. They involve pitching, and the work of Dennis Rasmussen and John Montefusco reflected the problems Lou Piniella must confront. Phil Lombardi, the rookie catcher who failed to make the pivotal play, won’t be around when Butch Wynegar returns from the disabled list next week, but the pitching problems could well be. The Yankees were leading, 4–3, with two out and two on in the sixth inning when Steve Lombardozzi hit a foul pop that Lombardi should have caught, but didn’t. Instead of being out of the inning, Montefusco, who had relieved Rasmussen, gave up run-scoring singles to Lombardozzi and Tim Laudner that put the Twins ahead, 5–4. In the ensuing innings, Kent Hrbek and Gary Gaetti each hit a home run against Montefusco, while Juan Agosto stifled the Yankees on four hits in five and two-thirds innings of nifty scoreless relief.
The Padres edged the Cardinals, 4–3. Carmelo Martinez hit a home run and scored three times to help Eric Show gain his first victory of the season. Show (1–2) allowed four hits and two runs over six innings before being replaced by Craig Lefferts. Rich Gossage worked the final two innings to gain his fourth save. The loser was Danny Cox (0–2). The Cardinals scored all their runs on sacrifice flies by Vince Coleman. His achievement equaled the major league record for sacrifice flies in a game, which is shared by four other players.
Johnny Ray drove in three runs with a double, a single and a sacrifice fly to lead Pittsburgh to a 6–2 victory over the San Francisco Giants. Ray, who went 2 for 3 and raised his average to .392, hit a run-scoring single in the eighth inning that snapped a 2–2 tie. The Pirates added two runs later in the eighth, and Ray had a run-scoring double in the ninth. Joe Orsulak led off the eighth with a single, stole second and scored on Ray’s single to center off Mike Krukow (3–2). The other runs in the inning scored on a wild pitch by reliever Jeff Robinson and a single by Jim Morrison.
The Angels downed the Blue Jays, 7–4. Brian Downing drove in three runs and had three extra-base hits to lead California. Jim Slaton (3–1) worked six innings and allowed three runs on five hits as Toronto lost its fifth straight series at home dating to 1985. The Angels broke a 3–3 tie and chased Jimmy Key (0–2) with two runs in the fourth. Key, who left the game with an 11.94 earned-run average, surrendered a leadoff single to Bob Boone, but Boone was erased on Darrell Miller’s fielder’s choice. Rick Burleson singled to put runners on second and third. With two out, Downing lined a double to left-center field, scoring Miller and Burleson to give California a 5–3 lead. California took a 2–0 lead in the second on Dick Schofield’s double and Burleson’s single. Gary Pettis was ejected in the inning for pushing the home-plate umpire, John Shulock, in the chest after being called out on strikes.
New York Mets 2, Atlanta Braves 7
Seattle Mariners 2, Boston Red Sox 12
Chicago Cubs 0, Los Angeles Dodgers 4
Oakland Athletics 7, Milwaukee Brewers 2
Minnesota Twins 7, New York Yankees 4
St. Louis Cardinals 3, San Diego Padres 4
Pittsburgh Pirates 6, San Francisco Giants 2
California Angels 7, Toronto Blue Jays 4
The stock market continued to decline yesterday, but the slide was not nearly as steep as Wednesday’s record setter. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 6.20 points, to 1,777.78, after dropping 41.91 points Wednesday, the biggest single-day point drop ever. Investors seemed to turn their attention back to things like interest rates from world events. The blue-chip index was heavily influenced again by programmed trading related to stock index futures.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1777.78 (-6.2)
Born:
Jerrell Freeman, NFL linebacker (Indianapolis Colts, Chicago Bears), in Waco, Texas.
Olivier Magnan, Canadian NHL defenseman (New Jersey Devils), in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.
Abby Huntsman, American journalist and television personality (“Fox and Friends Weekend”), in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Changmin [Lee Chang-min], South Korean K-pop singer (“Homme”; “2AM”), in Busan, South Korea.
Died:
Hugo Peretti, 69, American songwriter and record producer.
Hylda Baker, 81, British comic actress, and music hall performer, from bronchial pneumonia while suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
History Diaries 