Water reservoirs near the crippled Soviet nuclear power plant at Chernobyl are contaminated and the region remains too radioactive for evacuated residents to return, a leading Soviet Communist Party official said tonight. The official, Boris N. Yeltsin, a candidate member of the Politburo and the Moscow Communist Party leader, also said the accident was caused by human error. In the first detailed Soviet description of the Chernobyl disaster and its aftermath, Mr. Yeltsin told the West German television network ARD: “The cause lies apparently in the subjective realm, in human error. We are undertaking measures to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.” He said damage-control workers were using helicopters to drop sacks of sand, lead and boron to cut down emissions of radioactivity from the crippled plant, at Pripyat, in the Soviet Ukraine, where a major accident occurred a week ago.
On Thursday in Washington, American officials said special Soviet civil-defense forces had been observed dropping what was believed to be wet sand over the reactor core. The officials said the object appeared to be to put out a fire in the reactor’s graphite core, which encases the nuclear fuel rods. The Russians have never said the reactor was afire, although American and other experts have said they believed it was. Mr. Yeltsin said water reservoirs around the site of the reactor had been contaminated by the Chernobyl accident, but he did not elaborate on how the local population was dealing with that. He said residents of four “settlements” in the vicinity of the reactors were evacuated immediately after the accident, and that none of them had been directly exposed to radioactivity from the damaged reactor. The Soviet Government said Tuesday that the power station settlement and three nearby localities had been evacuated. Mr. Yeltsin did not say how many people were evacuated, nor did he mention casualty figures or other related details.
Official Soviet statements have said that 2 people were killed in the disaster and that 197 people were hospitalized, of whom 49 were discharged after a medical examination. Of the injured, 18 were said to be in serious condition. The Soviet Government did not revise its casualty toll today. Mr. Yeltsin said the three other nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl complex had been shut down immediately after the accident. The accident at the reactor, 70 miles north of Kiev, has spewed radioactive material into the atmosphere and prompted severe criticism from many Western governments, which have accused the Soviet Government of providing insufficient information about the disaster. Mr. Yeltsin, who is thought to be a close associate of the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, was interviewed today while attending a West German Communist Party congress in Hamburg.
The United States Government today advised women of child-bearing age and all children not to travel to Poland because of the potential health hazards caused by the nuclear reactor accident in the Ukraine. The Canadian, Australian and British Embassies have already evacuated the children of their diplomats in Poland to Western Europe. West Germans Impound Milk In addition, the West German authorities ordered supplies of fresh milk from several dairy regions impounded because of radioactive contamination. The West German Foreign Ministry said there were reports that Rumania had declared a state of emergency because of radiation there and had urged people to stay indoors.
In its approach to the fallout problems caused by the Soviet nuclear accident, the Polish Government has taken a clear foreign policy risk by showing far more candor than the Soviet Union. While the Soviet press seemed to have ignored or play down the disaster, the Polish authorities disclosed general radiation levels, banned the sale of milk from grazing cows and began issuing antiradiation medicine to 11 million children. Moreover, all such steps were announced on Polish radio boadcasts routinely heard by many people in the Ukraine and in Lithuania, where where reportedly no such measures were ordered.
Public health specialists in both Sweden and Italy predicted yesterday that a number of those exposed to the heaviest doses of radiation at the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine and now hospitalized would probably die within coming weeks or months. Their estimates, however, were based on measurements made far from the accident site, rather than on knowledge of actual exposures. Scientists at Sweden’s radiation protection agency reported in Stockholm that everyone within a mile of the reactor in the last week might have been exposed to a potentially lethal dose. This, the agency director said, was based on data from several nations, especially Poland. Dr. Gunnar Bengtsson, director of the National Institute of Radiation Protection, said at a news conference that parts of Poland received as much as 10 times the amount of radiation recorded in Sweden.
The chief spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry denied yesterday that Moscow had imposed a “premeditated silence” on information about the nuclear accident in the Ukraine. The official, Vladimir Lomeiko, visiting New York, said information about the accident at the Chernobyl reactor was made public as soon as the authorities became aware of the scope and significance of the accident. Although he did not directly refer to his Government’s 48-hour delay in acknowledging the accident, Mr. Lomeiko said he did not know about the incident when he left Moscow on Monday for New York. If he had, he said, his trip would undoubtedly have been canceled.
A high Soviet official today accused Western journalists of exaggerating the Chernobyl nuclear disaster “to whip up anti-Soviet hysteria.” At the same time, the official press agency Tass made public a letter from Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, to six world leaders criticizing continued American nuclear testing. Mr. Gorbachev’s letter said that the Soviet Government reserved the right to resume nuclear tests but that it was “in no hurry” to do so. The events seemed to indicate a Soviet desire to go on the offensive after five days of harsh worldwide criticism for the Kremlin’s refusal to provide detailed information about the disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, about 70 miles from Kiev, which spread a cloud of radioactive debris over much of Europe. After four days of terse official statements on the Chernobyl matter, the Soviet Government today offered no new information. In a speech in West Germany today, Boris N. Yeltsin, a candidate member of the Politburo and the Moscow Communist Party chief, said: “Our ideological opponents do not miss a single opportunity to launch yet one more campaign against the U.S.S.R. The bourgeois propaganda media are concocting many hoaxes around the accident at the Chernobyl atomic power plant.”
Shortly after President Reagan arrived in Tokyo for the economic summit meeting of industrialized democracies, the Administration indicated today that it expected the Soviet nuclear accident to become a major focus of three days of meetings. Administration officials said that it was uncertain whether the seven leaders who would meet here would go beyond international agreements already in place that called for cooperation in the nuclear area, but they said the issue would definitely be on the agenda. “What better time to have these people meeting than now,” the White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, said, commenting on the timeliness of the summit session in relation to the issues of nuclear safety and terrorism. The meeting opens Sunday. The leaders of Britain, the United States, Italy, West Germany, Japan, France and Canada began arriving here Thursday, with the Italian Prime Minister, Bettino Craxi, the first.
The Chancellor of Austria today called Kurt Waldheim “a risk” for this country’s international reputation and urged voters to reject the former United Nations Secretary General in the presidential election Sunday. Appearing at a news conference with three of his ministers, Chancellor Fred Sinowatz challenged Mr. Waldheim’s credibility and urged Austria’s 5.4 million voters to vote for his opponent, Kurt Steyrer. “Patriotic is to choose what is good for Austria and not for the candidate,” the Socialist Chancellor said. “And it is patriotic to elect a president who is not a risk for Austria, who will not have to be protected from abroad.” In a subsequent interview, Mr. Sinowatz charged the opposition People’s Party, which supports Mr. Waldheim’s candidacy, with stirring anti-Semitic feeling in Austria, and he predicted that a runoff election would be necessary next month to decide the bitterly fought contest. The presidential campaign has been dominated by charges that Mr. Waldheim concealed his service with the German Army in Greece and the Balkans during World War II and by accusations by the World Jewish Congress suggesting that he must have known about war crimes committed there.
The Israeli Foreign Minister said today that it would be “a real tragedy” if former Secretary General Kurt Waldheim was elected President of Austria. The Israeli, Yitzhak Shamir, said a victory by Mr. Waldheim in the election Sunday would hurt Israeli relations with Austria. “It’s very difficult to imagine it now, but it will be a real tragedy, a real tragedy from all points of view — political, diplomatic and human,” Mr. Shamir said in an interview. “It will be a tragic fact that such a man will be elected to such a position.” When asked whether a Waldheim presidency would damage Austrian-Israeli relations, Mr. Shamir said, “Without a doubt, it will hurt.” But he refused to say at this time whether he would be reluctant to visit Austria if Mr. Waldheim becomes President.
Five Czechoslovaks, including four diplomats, were ordered today to leave Sweden for spying. A Stockholm newspaper, Expressen, said the five included the heads of Czechoslovak civilian and military intelligence activities in Sweden. It said military, industrial and high-technology secrets had been sought. The newspaper identified the four diplomats as Jan Kroupa, 42 years old, a first secretary; Jan Sovjak, 35, a military attaché; Lubomir Kopaj, 30, a press attache, and Ludvik Vanhara, 42, a trade attaché. The newspaper identified the fifth as Pavel Scherzl, 33, head of Czechoslovakia’s national airline in Sweden.
Three Libyans named in an attempt to bomb a United States officers’ club in Ankara have diplomatic immunity and cannot be put on trial, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said today. The three were identified as Abdul Hamid al Hadi Sadun, an embassy bodyguard; Mohammed Shaban Hassan, a Libyan cultural center official, and Ali al-Zayyani, the Libyan Consul in Istanbul. Two other Libyans are being held for trial in the case.
The Libyan television has shown film of what it said was the helmet of an American airman who took part in the American bombing raid on Libya. The program, monitored in Britain late Thursday, showed a helmet with the name “Lorence” on it. One of the two American airmen lost in the raid was Capt. Paul Lorence. The Libyan broadcast said the helmet was found Wednesday on the beach about 25 miles west of Tripoli.
The Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, the Sikh religion’s holiest shrine, was reopened to the public today, a day after a police raid drove Sikh radicals from the building. Killings were reported in the Punjab, apparently in retaliation for the police operation. In addition, Surjit Singh Barnala, a Sikh who is Chief Minister of Punjab state, faced a rebellion within his party as four key aides resigned to protest his authorization of the temple raid.
President Reagan is greeted at the Haneda Airport, Japan by the Japanese Chief of Protocol and the U.S. Ambassador to Japan.
The American bombing of Libya on April 15 has transformed the agenda for the summit conference of the seven leading Western industrial powers. In the last few days, officials of the Reagan Administration and diplomats and spokesmen for the other governments involved have said in a series of interviews that restoration of a semblance of unity — especially but not exclusively on terrorism — has become the overriding priority for the conference, which opens in Tokyo on Sunday. “We simply cannot afford to leave there in the same state of disarray we found ourselves after the air raids,” said Lord Lever, an international economist and a former British Cabinet member, who has been involved in the planning for the conference. He argued that in a sense both the economic questions with which these annual gatherings are designed to deal and the political issues that have always intruded would have to be viewed, this time, “in terms of the stresses that are seriously weakening the alliance.”
Most Japanese believe their country has become a global power and that, as such, it should be playing a broader role in international affairs, according to a poll conducted by the New York Times, CBS News and the Tokyo Broadcasting System. A majority of the Japanese surveyed, 55 percent, said they believed one of Japan’s main obligations should be to provide more aid to poorer nations. According to the survey, 31 percent also felt their country’s international responsibilities required it to work harder to reduce its large trade surpluses. The findings thus suggest significant support for two basic themes struck repeatedly by the Japanese Government in recent years — that it must do something soon about growing trade imbalances and that it must increase economic assistance to poor nations. But the Japanese, who were interviewed in person from April 4 through 6 in advance of the economic summit meeting, which starts Sunday, were far less receptive to the idea of increased military spending as another way of fulfilling global obligations. A stronger military is another stated priority of Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. But only 12 percent thought that Japan should assume a larger share of its own defense.
Nancy Reagan may be feeling jittery, as some in the White House suggest. She is traveling on her own in Malaysia and Thailand at a time when fears about terrorist reprisals against the United States shiver through the Administration and the country. But just as she and her husband never publicly talk about the prospect of physical danger a President faces, so they are not talking about the risk she takes with her four-day solo tour in Asia. “Somebody asked my husband that, and I said I’ll go along with his answer,” said the First Lady, a self-confessed “born worrier,” when a reporter asked if she was nervous. “He said, ‘I’m superstitious, so I’m not going to talk about it.’ “
Philippine President Corazon C. Aquino dismissed a police chief today who she said had dealt too leniently with demonstrators calling for the return of Ferdinand E. Marcos. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile said the former President would be arrested if he set foot in the Philippines. The developments came after a call Thursday by Secretary of State George P. Shultz for Manila to issue Mr. Marcos a passport so he could travel from the United States. The dismissal of the district police chief, Brig. Gen. Narciso Cabrera, indicated that the tolerance with which a night of street battles in which the police broke up a two-week-old sit-in by Marcos loyalists across the street from the United States Embassy had been treated had gone beyond the President’s orders.
Transportation Expo 86 opened in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Expo ’86 world’s fair opened this afternoon with the Prince and Princess of Wales waving at tens of thousands of people as bagpipes screeched and cars and boats honked their horns. Overcast skies dimmed neither the crowd’s enthusiasm nor the smiles of the royal couple, who were greeted at the site by the pounding drums of a local Indian band. Just at that moment, the sun peeked through. Prince Charles declared the affair officially open in a cermemony at Vancouver’s domed stadium, British Columbia Place. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney called it “a day to inscribe in the history of our country.”
South Africa signaled its readiness to enter into talks about the possibility of legalizing the banned African National Congress and releasing Nelson Mandela, the group’s most prominent leader, who has been in jail for nearly 24 years. The signal was conveyed to London this week by an envoy of the Government of President P. W. Botha to a delegation of Commonwealth leaders, according to a well-placed diplomatic source.
In a grueling test of endurance and self-reliance, six American and Canadian explorers reached the North Pole yesterday evening after nearly two months of walking, jogging or skiing over the rugged Arctic ice pack. They were the first people to reach the Pole assisted only by dogs since Robert E. Peary planted a flag there in 1909. The explorers, accompanied by 21 huskies pulling two sledloads of food, fuel and equipment, reached the top of the world at 6:50 P.M. Central daylight time (7:50 P.M. Eastern daylight time), 56 days and 500 miles from their starting point. “This Pole trip is probably the ultimate in self-reliance,” Will Steger, a 41-year-old former science teacher from Minnesota who led the expedition, said in February before beginning the perilous journey. In the trip across the ice, two of the team’s original eight members were airlifted out because of injuries.
The South African Government has signaled its readiness to enter into talks about the possibility of legalizing the banned African National Congress and releasing Nelson Mandela, its most prominent leader, who has been in jail for nearly 24 years. The signal was conveyed here personally this week by an envoy of President P. W. Botha’s Government to a delegation of Commonwealth leaders, according to a well-placed diplomatic source. The seven Commonwealth leaders, known as the Eminent Persons Group, visited South Africa in March and were permitted to hold political talks with Mr. Mandela at Pollsmoor Prison, outside Cape Town. The group later met Mr. Botha and reportedly told him that Mr. Mandela was “a man of peace.” The source stressed that there was no evidence that the Botha Government had reached a firm decision on whether to restore legal status to the Congress movement, which went underground after it was declared an illegal organization in 1960.
President Reagan received word that the budget has passed the Senate. The White House said today that President Reagan opposed the $1 trillion budget for 1987 that the Senate approved overwhelmingly early this morning. Mr. Reagan will continue to fight for his budget priorities, the White House said, even if it means using his veto power. The President strongly objects to provisions adding new revenue and limiting the military budget. But Senate leaders said that the substantial bipartisan support for the plan in the Senate meant the House was likely to approve a similar proposal and that the President was headed for a confrontation with Congress. Some members of the House Budget Committee agreed that the Republican support for revenue increases in the Senate would open the way for the Democrats to add revenue in their proposal. House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., Democrat of Massachusetts, said recently that he would not consider tax increases unless they were supported by Republicans in the Senate and House. House Budget Committee members have said they expect to reduce the military budget level significantly below the Senate.
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Bob Packwood, announced today that he believed he had won majority support on his committee for a “package” of comprehensive changes in the tax law. “A group of us have reached a consensus,” the Senator said. “I think it’s a majority.” The apparent agreement on a revolutionary set of tax principles that would go into effect next year was reached in a series of long closed-door meetings this week. Senator Packwood, an Oregon Republican, said that the panel would begin voting on the legislation in public sessions next week and that he hoped the committee would approve a bill by the end of the week.
The rapid spread of mandatory testing programs to identify employees who use illegal drugs is touching off a growing debate over whether private employers have the right to insist on such tests. Some lawyers who specialize in civil liberties cases contend that the matter is the most significant privacy issue of the decade. Labor unions are mounting legal challenges around the country in an effort to have the testing declared unconstitutional. They assert that the tests are unreliable and may be biased against black and Hispanic workers. But so far most judges and legal scholars are siding with employers who maintain that guarantees of privacy and limits on improper searches and seizures contained in the United States Constitution do not apply to what the legal experts term reasonable programs of drug screening imposed by private companies. Most programs use urinalysis or blood tests to determine if employees or prospective employees have used illicit drugs.
The nation’s unemployment rate edged down to 7 percent last month, with strong job growth in construction more than offsetting losses in factories and oilfields, the Labor Department reported today. Analysts said the decline of one-tenth of a percentage point, regarded as statistically insignificant, reflected an economy that continued to expand at a desultory rate of probably less than 3 percent. The official figures included both civilians and the 1,695,000 people in the armed forces. The unemployment rate for civilians alone in April was 7.1 percent. The total number of unemployed workers fell by 77,000 in April, to 8,342,000, despite a small rise in the size of the labor force.
The nationwide movement to help Central Americans enter the United States and harbor them here will grow, not diminish, because of guilty verdicts Thursday against church workers charged with conspiring to smuggle aliens into the country, movement workers said here today. But government officials said the verdicts should serve notice that the nationwide movement was operating illegally and such illegal conduct will not be tolerated. The four-year-old movement, which has been endorsed by about 300 churches, approximately 20 cities and the State of New Mexico, has been active in helping people fleeing El Salavador and Guatemala. Supporters of the movement say those they help are fleeing persecution and have unlawfully been denied entry to this country. The Government says the Central Americans are coming here for economic reasons and the sanctuary movement violates immigration laws.
John A. Walker Jr. told Goverment investigators last November that he forged his last top-secret security clearance before retiring from the Navy in 1976. Mr. Walker’s assertion was disclosed by Federal District Judge John P. Vukasin Jr. at a hearing today at which he released papers to the defense in the espionage trial of Jerry A. Whitworth. Mr. Whitworth, a retired Navy radioman, is accused of belonging to the Soviet spy ring Mr. Walker has confessed to heading. Judge Vukasin ordered parts of reports on investigations of Mr. Walker and on his interrogation by various Government agencies to be turned over to defense attorneys. They plan to use the material in their cross-examination of Mr. Walker Monday.
Blacks resumed shopping at white-owned businesses in Indianola, Mississippi today, ending a 37-day economic boycott that forced city leaders to buy out the contract of a white school superintendent and replace him with a black superintendent. Blacks called off the boycott Thursday night after the newly appointed superintendent, W. A. Grissom, agreed not to take the post and the school board voted to replace him with Robert Merritt, a black principal. White merchants bought out the contract of Mr. Grissom for $90,000, according to his attorney. His three-year contract, at $45,000 annually, was to have started July 1. “Business is back to normal and I’m elated,” said Steve Rosenthal, a department store owner and chairman of the Chamber of Commerce’s merchants committee. Mr. Merritt, a principal for 16 years, is the first black superintendent in Indianola, where 90 percent of the school system’s 3,037 students are black.
The man who headed development of the space shuttle’s solid-fuel booster rockets retired today, spending his last day on the job in Washington at a closed session of the commission investigating the disaster of the space shuttle Challenger. The rocket developer, George B. Hardy, 55 years old, deputy director of the science and engineering directorate at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Marshall Space Flight Center, played a key role in the the space agency’s decision to launch the shuttle January 28.
Residents of the factory town of Warren, Rhode Island, have voted nearly 10 to 1 against proposed pay increases for striking teachers of 18 percent over three years. The proposed raises were rejected by a nonbinding vote of 2,092 to 218. Bargaining resumed today between the School Committee and the teachers after the referendum Thursday. The walkout, which began April 21, has kept 1,400 children out of classes. The 115 teachers are insisting on an arbitrator’s recommendation for a three-year contract with 6 percent increases each year. The School Committee proposed total increases of 8 or 10 percent, and asked residents whether it should go along with the arbitrator.
The woman who served as the first openly homosexual Mayor of an American city has resigned her City Council seat after being sentenced to 60 days for embezzling public funds. Federal District Judge Laughlin Waters on Wednesday recommended that the former Mayor, Valerie Terrigno, serve the time in a halfway house. He also ordered her to complete 1,000 hours of community service over a five-year probationary period and make restitution of $6,800. A jury found March 14 that she misused that amount in her term as director of Crossroads Counseling Center, an agency for the poor and homeless, before she became Mayor of West Hollywood. Miss Terrigno gave up her mayoral job last year in a routine rotation, but remained on the council.
A former Congressman was convicted today of paying a $25,000 bribe to an Indian chief for a contract to run bingo games on an Indian reservation in Louisiana. Lawyers for the former Representative, Richard Tonry, said they would appeal the verdict by a jury in Federal District Court. Mr. Tonry was convicted of one count of bribery and one of interstate travel in aid of racketeering. He faces up to 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine. Mr. Tonry was elected to Congress in 1976 but resigned four months after taking office. Several weeks later he pleaded guilty to four violations of Federal campaign laws, for which he served six months in prison.
Top officials are moving rapidly to eject malpractice insurance companies from West Virginia and replace them with a state-owned insurance system. In the process, they are helping to turn this small state into a major battleground in the nation’s liability insurance dispute. The officials say they are acting because a number of insurers recently notified thousands of doctors, nurses, lawyers, engineers and other professionals across the state that their malpractice policies are being canceled. It is widely feared that this will cause so many doctors, clinics and hospitals to cease work as to seriously cripple health care in the state.
The Pentagon said today that it had decided to proceed with the development of a “tilt-rotor” aircraft at a total cost exceeding $20 billion. But the Pentagon suggested that it might back out of the program if costs were not kept in line. Deputy Defense Secretary William H. Taft 4th authorized Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. to signs contracts beginning full-scale development of the aircraft, the V-22 Osprey, subject to reviews late next year. The Osprey could take off like a helicopter, using engines affixed to its wings. Once airborne, the planes’ engines would shift from a vertical to a horizontal position and the plane would function as a propeller-driven aircraft. The plane’s primary purpose would be to carry troops in amphibious assaults. The Navy is charged with the overall management of the program, which is to develop the Osprey for the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force and the Army. Some 550 of the 900 planes that are to be bought would be for the Marines.
The Chrysler Corporation said today that it would spend $866 million to expand two plants in suburban Fenton and install sophisticated equipment for the assembly of mini-vans and a new front-wheel-drive car. Gerald Greenwald, chairman of Chrysler Motors, said at a news conference that the modernization of the plants would include additional robots and machine welders to perform monotonous tasks. But the program would not cause a reduction in the work force of 8,400 at the plants if demand for the vehicles meets expectations, Mr. Greenwald said.
Major League Baseball:
Jose Canseco, a rookie with 23 runs batted in through 23 games, hit a two-run homer, and Dave Kingman and Bruce Bochte added bases-empty ones to power Joaquin Andujar and the Oakland A’s to a 4–1 victory over the Boston Red Sox. Andujar (3–1) pitched a five-hitter in his Fenway Park debut, struck out three and walked one. It was his third straight victory and ended Boston’s four-game winning steak. Oakland ended a scoreless duel between Andujar and the Boston starter, Al Nipper (2–3), in the fourth inning. Dwayne Murphy led off by slicing a double into the left-field corner and Canseco followed with his seventh home run of the season, a 420-foot drive that landed in the bleachers beyond the Oakland bullpen in right field.
Tony Bernazard and Chris Bando delivered run-scoring singles in the 10th inning as Cleveland won its fifth straight game, downing the Chicago White Sox, 7–5. Brook Jacoby opened the 10th with a single off Dave Schmidt (0–1), and Pat Tabler was hit by a pitch. Mel Hall flied out before Bernazard and Bando followed with their successive singles. Ernie Camacho (1–0) was the winner.
The New York Mets held off a late rally to edge the Cincinnati Reds, 8–7. New York required the uncanny relief services of Jesse Orosco, who has now produced four saves and has not been scored upon in 11 ⅓ innings this season. Down by 8–2 going into the eighth, the Reds chased Roger McDowell, who had relieved Fernandez in the sixth inning. McDowell, victimized by hits that barely fell fair, yielded four runs. He was removed with two runners on and one out and Dave Parker ready to bat with the score 8–6. It was a classic clutch setting: one team’s reliever facing the other team’s top slugger. Throwing only one slider and fastballs, Orosco got the count to 3–2 and then tossed another fastball. Parker took it, was called out, and objected to the call. Bo Diaz was up next, and Orosco threw a wild pitch that allowed a run and cut the Mets’ lead to 8–7. Diaz walked, but Orosco got Nick Esasky to hit a pop-up to end the rally.
The Twins pounded the Tigers, 10–1. Kirby Puckett hit the first pitch of the game from Detroit’s Jack Morris for a home run, and Steve Lombardozzi also hit a homer to lead Minnesota. Puckett’s home run was his 10th of the season, which leads the major leagues. Puckett also went 3 for 5 to raise his batting average to .396, drove in two runs and scored three times. He extended his hitting streak to 15 games.
The Royals shut out the Orioles, 5–0. Bret Saberhagen, the 1985 American League Cy Young winner, scattered 10 hits for Kansas City. The 22-year-old Saberhagen, who had lost his last two decisions, raised his record to 2–2 by striking out six and issuing only one walk. George Brett and Frank White hit consecutive home runs off the reliever Nate Snell in the fifth inning as the Royals handed the Orioles their sixth loss in nine games.
The Los Angeles Dodgers edged the St. Louis Cardinals, 3–2. Mike Marshall keyed a three-run third inning with a two-run homer as the Los Angeles Dodgers extended their winning streak to six. The loss was the fourth straight and the 11th in the last 12 games for the defending NL champions.
The Brewers edged the Angels, 5–4. Paul Molitor hit a run-scoring triple and scored three runs, including a steal of home. Don Sutton (0–3), failed in his fifth start this season in an effort to win his 296th career game. The rookie Juan Nieves (1–1) pitched six and two-thirds innings for his first major-league victory and the rookie Dan Plesac hung on for his first save.
Jose Cruz knocked in two runs with a pair of singles, and Kevin Bass had two hits and scored twice as Houston beat Montreal, 6–3, in near-freezing weather. The temperature was 41 degrees when the game began and dropped from there. Bob Knepper (5–0) pitched six innings and allowed four hits for one run and struck out three. Houston got one run in the first inning and two in the second off Floyd Youmans (0–3).
Lou Piniella knew there could be days like this: First he was suspended for two games for bumping an umpire, then he was booed for leaving Bob Shirley in too long. The suspension takes effect next Monday and Tuesday. The booing was effective last night, even though the Yankees weren’t. They got only three hits against the youngest player in the major leagues, 20-year-old Ed Correa, and lost to the Texas Rangers, 7–0. Shirley walked a career-high nine batters. He walked three Rangers in the first inning but somehow kept them from scoring. Then he walked two each in each of the three innings the Rangers scored two runs against him. He didn’t allow any particularly big hits, but Scott Fletcher drove in three runs with a pair of doubles. The only hit the Yankees had against Correa, one of three rookies in the Rangers’ rotation, in the first seven innings was Mike Pagliarulo’s double in the fourth. Rickey Henderson’s leadoff single in the eighth and Mike Easler’s leadoff double in the ninth were just as harmless as Correa recorded his team’s first complete game and shutout.
Bob Horner went 4 for 5 and knocked in two runs, and David Palmer scattered five hits to lift Atlanta to a 7–1 romp over the Phillies. Palmer (2–1) struck out nine batters and walked seven in completing his first game since June 27, 1982. The Philadelphia starter, Steve Carlton (1–4), struggled with his control and the second baseman, Juan Samuel, made two costly errors as Atlanta scored five runs in the first two innings.
The Pirates blanked th Padres, 4–0. Rookie Mike Bielecki threw three-hit ball for seven innings, and the Pirates scored all their runs in the seventh. Bielecki (2–0), a 26-year-old right-hander who entered the game with a 6.75 earned-run average, allowed only a second-inning single by Terry Kennedy, a third-inning single by Tony Gwynn and a seventh-inning single by Garry Templeton.
Shawon Dunston’s third of four hits in the game, a two-run double in the seventh inning, sent Chicago ahead and the Cubs rebounded from two consecutive shutout losses to beat the San Francisco Giants 6–5 Friday night. Chicago scored four runs in the seventh, two charged to Jeff Robinson and two to loser Mark Davis, 1–2. The Cubs, shut out by the Los Angeles Dodgers the previous two nights, broke a string of 23 scoreless innings when they broke through for a run in the fourth against Giants starter Juan Berenguer. Matt Keough, 2–1, the third Chicago pitcher of the game, got the victory. Jay Baller pitched the final three innings for his fourth save. Jody Davis led off the seventh with a double, his second of the night, and advanced to third on Ron Cey’s groundout to second. Gary Matthews singled home Davis, cutting the Giants’ lead to 4–3. After Matthews was forced at second, Mark Davis relieved Robinson. Davis walked pinch-hitter Thad Bosley, and Dunston drilled a 1–0 pitch into the left field corner to score two runs.
Al Cowens’s bases-loaded single off the pitcher Don Gordon’s chest with two outs in the 11th inning enabled Seattle to break a six-game losing streak, beating the Blue Jays, 3–2. Danny Tartabull, who had hit a homer earlier, singled with one out in the 11th off the reliever Mark Eichhorn (2–2). Tartabull stole second, and Alvin Davis and Gorman Thomas drew two-out walks that loaded the bases.
Oakland Athletics 4, Boston Red Sox 1
Cleveland Indians 7, Chicago White Sox 5
New York Mets 8, Cincinnati Reds 7
Minnesota Twins 10, Detroit Tigers 1
Baltimore Orioles 0, Kansas City Royals 5
St. Louis Cardinals 2, Los Angeles Dodgers 3
California Angels 4, Milwaukee Brewers 5
Houston Astros 6, Montreal Expos 3
Texas Rangers 7, New York Yankees 0
Atlanta Braves 7, Philadelphia Phillies 1
Pittsburgh Pirates 4, San Diego Padres 0
Chicago Cubs 6, San Francisco Giants 5
Seattle Mariners 3, Toronto Blue Jays 2
The stock market suffered its fourth straight loss yesterday and ended the second-worst week in its history. Trading slowed down as the economic summit meeting in Japan approached. “When you have a week as bad as this one has been, it’s not likely they will turn the fortunes around on Friday, especially when you have the economic summit” coming up, said Larry Wachtel, a market analyst with Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. With yesterday’s 3.10-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average, to 1,774.68, the blue-chip gauge was off 60.89 points for the week. The final week in April was surpassed only by the start of the month, when, in the week ended April 4, the Dow fell a record 82.50 points. The Dow average lost 3.3 percent of its value this week.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1774.68 (-3.1)
Born:
James Kirk, Canadian actor (“She’s the Man”), in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Thomas McDonell, American actor (“The 100”), in Manhattan, New York, New York.
Brian Johnston, NFL defensive end (Kansas City Chiefs), in Orange County, California.
Died:
Henri Toivonen, 29, Finnish rally driver (3 x World Rally Championship round wins for Talbot, Opel, Porsche, Lancia), in a rally accident.
History Diaries 