One of the Soviet Union’s top physicists said today that the battle against the Chernobyl nuclear disaster was still a defensive one and that the large damaged reactor continued to generate heat. “Nobody has ever confronted a similar accident,” the physicist, Yevgeny P. Velikhov, vice president of the Academy of Sciences, told Pravda, the Communist Party daily. “The unprecedented situation demands a solution of problems with which neither scientists nor specialists have ever dealt. A reactor is several thousand tons, and this gigantic mass is warming up.” A Tass report from Kiev, meanwhile, gave the first indication in the Soviet press of disquiet in the Ukrainian capital over the accident last month. It said that long lines were forming for tickets to leave the city and that dozens of additional trains and flights were being added. The Pravda article described helicopters swooping to dump sand, clay, lead and boron into the reactor in a fight to contain radioactivity. Officials said 4,000 tons had been cast onto the damaged unit.
Satellites took pictures of the stricken Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine and news agencies and the United States Information Agency used satellites to spread the news to most parts of the earth soon after Swedish monitoring stations had reported heightened radiation levels. The electronic global village, predicted by Marshall McLuhan in 1964, had arrived.
The Polish Government assailed the West this week on the grounds that it sought propaganda gains from the Chernobyl reactor accident in the Ukraine, but there was not a word of complaint against Moscow for its responsibility in the disaster. Regions of Poland near the Soviet border received some of the heaviest fallout from the stricken nuclear plant, prompting officials to distribute iodine pills to help children and pregnant women ward off the effects of radiocative iodine 131, which can cause thyroid cancer. A Polish spokesman said Western authorities had tried to exploit the disaster by sowing fright and panic in Poland through reports on shortwave radio. At the same time, the Government announced it was belatedly retaliating for travel restrictions imposed last December by the Reagan Administration on Polish diplomats in the United States. The reciprocal limitations announced here on United States diplomats, were, however, the most lenient of the possibilities being considered and essentially oblige United States Embassy and consular personnel to advise the Foreign Ministry of their travel plans.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization gave new political impetus to armaments cooperation as members pledged to seek national funds to support joint weapons projects. Assistant Secretary General Robin Beard said a meeting of deputy defense ministers showed that the allies firmly support enhanced collaboration to increase military capabilities. U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary William H. Taft IV said the session was a success.
Yugoslav prosecutors demanded the death sentence for alleged Nazi war criminal Andrija Artukovic, 86, the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported. Artukovic, who had been living in Seal Beach, California, was extradited from the United States in February to face indictment for crimes that allegedly took place while he was interior minister of the Nazi puppet state of Croatia in World War II. He has denied the charges. It is now the defense’s turn to sum up its case. Mr. Artukovic was extradited from the United States in February to face an indictment of three mass murders and one individual murder as Interior Minister of the Nazi puppet state of Croatia in 1941-45. He denies all charges.
In the first significant break in a united Protestant campaign of opposition to the British-Irish pact on Northern Ireland, the Belfast City Council has voted to obey a High Court order to resume normal activities. Five Protestant councilors broke ranks to vote with Roman Catholics on Tuesday night and insure that a motion in favor of normal work was passed, 27 to 23. Protestants, who favor the north’s continued union with Britain, have prevented the council from operating by adjourning all meetings since the accord was signed last November. Last week, the High Court threatened the council with a $38,000 fine and members with a five-year ban from holding public office unless they agreed to resume normal business.
The U.S. State Department warned U.S. companies and hostages’ families against secret talks with terrorists who hold Americans. “Payment of ransom or other concessions to terrorists in exchange for the release of hostages increases the danger that others will be taken hostage,” a statement said. Any company or person who tries to make a private deal with terrorists will not get “U.S. government approval or cooperation,” the statement said.
Israel’s Defense Minister said today that Syrian security and intelligence officials were responsible for the unsuccessful attempt last month to smuggle a bomb aboard an Israeli airliner in London. “We have all reason to believe,” Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said, “that it was planned and carried out by part of the established organization of the security and intelligence community of Syria.” In a meeting with reporters today, Mr. Rabin further asserted that the decision to smuggle the bomb aboard the passenger plane of El Al Israel Airlines had been made at a high level in the Syrian Government. He said his judgment was based on information from the British authorities and other sources, but he declined to elaborate.
An elderly Frenchman was kidnapped in West Beirut today, and a Lebanese professor at American University here was reported missing and feared abducted. The Frenchman, Camille Sontag, 85 years old, was the ninth French citizen to be kidnapped in the militia-ruled Moslem part of the Lebanese capital in the last 18 months. One of the hostages, Michel Seurat, was reported slain by his captors this year.
A House panel approved a resolution that would block a Pentagon contract to a company partly owned by Libya, a U.S. target for its support of terrorists. The action by the House Armed Services Committee followed a General Accounting Office ruling that the Marine Corps was within the law in deciding to award a contract for 187 tractors made by the Fiat-Allis company, a Fiat subsidiary, 15% of which is owned by Libya. The committee recommended unanimously that awarding of the contract be delayed until Congress reviews procurement laws.
Iraqi planes bombed Tehran’s main oil refinery today, the first air attack on the Iranian capital in 11 months. The national press agency said at least five people were killed. Witnesses said a single plane dropped a bomb “as big as a car” on the plant. The glow of a fire from part of the refinery could still be seen in the distance nine hours later. The press agency reported damage was slight, however, and said technicians were already making repairs. Ten people wounded in the raid were admitted to one hospital, but the exact number hurt was not known, the agency said. Tehran radio broadcast a second alert four hours after the refinery was hit and antiaircraft fire was heard, but there was no sign of attacking aircraft. Iran’s air defenses are described by Western intelligence sources as meager and widely scattered. The only heavy antiaircraft guns in the Tehran area are apparently three batteries of 88-millimeter Soviet-made ZSU guns and four batteries of 57-millimeter ZSU’s. But intelligence sources said they believed these batteries were probably not at full strength and that ammunition stocks were low. Smoke from the Iraqi raid billowed from at least three places in the complex for some hours, spreading a pall over southeast Tehran. A military communique in Baghdad said “squadrons of planes” attacked the 200,000-barrels-a-day complex, Iran’s second-biggest refinery, and “reduced it to ashes.”
A bomb exploded today in Sri Lanka’s Central Telegraph Office, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than 115, 20 of them critically, the police said. Tonight, as a heavy monsoon rain swept over the city, rescuers were still searching for any survivors buried in the debris. The government broadcasting service made appeals for blood donors. No group has taken responsibility for the blast, but authorities said they believed the explosion was the work of Tamil separatist guerrillas. The government has also blamed Tamil separatists for a bombing that blew apart a jet of the national airline, Air Lanka, at Katunayake International Airport in Colombo last Saturday, killing killed 15 and wounding dozens. A 16th victim of the Air Lanka blast, a 23-year-old West German woman, was reported to have died today in Stuttgart, where she had been flown Tuesday for medical treatment. Huge crowds gathered at the site of the blast today, which is part of the country’s national telecommunications complex in the heart of downtown Colombo. The police flagged down passing cars to take the wounded to hospitals through streets choked with traffic.
The first parliamentary election in Bangladesh in seven years brought out millions of voters today but was marred by widespread violence, voter intimidation and fraud that appeared to favor the political party supported by the martial-law Government. There were no reliable counts of the casualties, but the Bangladesh Awami League, the main opposition party, said at least 20 of its workers had been killed and 500 injured. Reporters in different parts of the country found widespread evidence that gangs, most of them working for the Government-backed party, stole ballots or prevented people from voting, often by force. In many cases, policemen and army troops were seen doing little or nothing to stop the disruptions.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz, arriving in Seoul for a 24-hour visit, said today that the Reagan Administration strongly supported the South Korean Government’s efforts to make changes and assailed those in the opposition who “incite violence.” At the same time, the Secretary, who is to meet Thursday with a cross-section of Koreans, declined to meet with Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam, two of South Korea’s most prominent political figues. Mr. Shultz seemed to go out of his way not to indicate any lessening of Washington’s backing for President Chun Doo Hwan. The reasoning for this strategy, American officials said, is that Washington believes it is important for stability here for the Chun Government to carry out its stated intention to carry out a peaceful democratic power transfer in two years. They said Washington believed that the Seoul Government, which has been accused of human rights abuses, and of trying to limit the opposition’s ability to present its views, will only move ahead if it feels secure in its military, economic and political ties to the United States.
Japanese political and business leaders expressed unhappiness today with the results of the Tokyo summit conference, many of them saying Japan had yielded too much to the other countries on vital diplomatic and economic matters. Businessmen, fearing difficult times ahead for small exporters, were especially disappointed that Japan failed to persuade its allies on a need for quick action to stem the steady rise of the yen’s value against the dollar. Their frustration was echoed by Members of Parliament from the governing Liberal Democratic Party, many of whom represent business interests and receive financial support in return. Opposition spokesmen and rival factions in his own party also took Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to task because he had agreed to an antiterrorism statement that singled out Libya for condemnation.
President Reagan leaves Japan for Washington, D.C. President Reagan, returning to an enthusiastic welcome in Washington, said today that the leading industrial democracies had moved “beyond words and rhetoric” in a unified struggle against terrorism. “We agreed the time has come to move beyond words and rhetoric,” Mr. Reagan said, on the White House lawn, where he was greeted by Cabinet officers, staff members and his daughter Maureen. “Terrorists and those who support them, especially governments, have been put on notice,” he said. “It’s going to be tougher from now on.”
President Corazon C. Aquino said today that the leaders of the Communist insurgency had not yet responded to her offer to hold talks and that she would give them about six months to do so. Interviewed on the Government television station on the eve of the arrival of Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Mrs. Aquino also said she hoped American expressions of support for her new Government would translate into “massive” aid. She said that although she hoped creditors would give the Philippines time to start an economic recovery, she did not agree with many of her countrymen who have called for repudiation of foreign debts incurred by the Government of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos. These debts have been estimated at $26 billion.
Ousted Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier and his relatives pocketed nearly $100,000 in public funds each month he was in power, officials said. A seven-member commission, appointed last month by Haiti’s ruling civilian-military council, is reviewing the financial records of ministries and agencies under Duvalier, who fled the country February 7. Banks have been asked to open their books to investigators tracing Duvalier’s wealth, estimated at between $200 million and $800 million. Duvalier still owes the National Bank of Credit $5.6 million, officials said.
Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte ordered the release of an army officer arrested in connection with a right-wing kidnapping ring, saying there was not enough evidence to bring Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Mauricio Staben to trial. Duarte said Staben will resume command of the army’s elite U.S.trained battalion. Another suspect implicated Staben in the ring, which is reported to have collected more than $4 million in ransom from the families of its victims. Duarte said the government has “presented for prosecution” the names of five army officers and several police inspectors.
Ethiopia says its top relief official in the 1984-85 famine has fled to the United States with hundreds of thousands of dollars in famine aid money. The accusation against the official, Dawit Wolde Giorgis, who headed the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, was made in a lengthy statement by Ethiopia’s Marxist Government. The statement was broadcast Tuesday night in the Amharic-language domestic service of the state-owned radio and monitored in neighboring Kenya. An English-language version was broadcast today. It was the first official acknowledgement that the aide, a bachelor in his mid-40’s, had fled. He was last heard of on October 25, when he left Ethiopia on a trip to Europe and the United States to solicit famine relief funds.
Leading senators and representatives from both parties said today that the Senate Finance Committee’s unanimous approval of a tax bill shortly after midnight meant that comprehensive tax-revision legislation would almost certainly be enacted before the end of this year. Bob Dole of Kansas, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, said a tax bill would pass “easily” when it goes before the full Senate next month. He said the new balanced-budget law would make it more difficult for senators to amend the committee’s bill. Representative Dan Rostenkowski, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who steered similar legislation through the House of Representatives last year, said he was “elated” by the Finance Committee’s action. “We have taken another giant step toward reforming the tax code,” added Mr. Rostenkowski, an Illinois Democrat. He noted that the House and Senate versions differed in many important respects but said, “The differences, should we see each other in a conference, can be ironed out.”
The tax revision plan approved unanimously by the Senate Finance Committee would have a far-reaching impact on the everyday financial affairs of individuals. The reduction in the top individual tax rate from 50 percent to 27 percent — its lowest level in more than a half century — and the elimination of dozens of tax benefits would reduce the role that taxes play in the decisions of Americans.
President Reagan is welcomed back from his trip to East Asia by a thousand well-wishers.
President Reagan’s effort to sell $354 million worth of advanced missiles to Saudi Arabia seemed all but dead today after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly adopted a resolution rejecting the deal. The 356-to-62 vote was more lopsided than opponents of the sale expected, and it marked the first time that both houses of Congress have voted down a foreign arms sale. The Senate approved an identical resolution Tuesday by a vote of 73 to 22.
The space agency has reduced the number of people who monitor the quality of work and equipment by 70 percent over the last 15 years, Senator Albert Gore Jr. said today. The Tennessee Democrat said the reduction had been a factor in the agency’s recent problems, including the space shuttle disaster and the failure of a Delta rocket carrying a weather satellite. He said he had obtained the data from an employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Over all, Mr. Gore said the statistics show that the number of “reliability and quality assurance personnel” has declined to 505 from 1,689 in 1970, a reduction of 70 percent. Milton A. Silveira, chief engineer of NASA, said in an interview today that Mr. Gore’s figures were correct. He said the data came from the space agency itself. Kenneth C. Atchison, a spokesman for the agency, noted that the total number of NASA employees declined 31 percent in the same period, from 32,548 in 1970 to 22,316 in 1985. Thus, the reduction in quality control personnel has been proportionally much greater than the overall reduction in employment in the agency. The biggest cut in quality control personnel, according to the data, occurred at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, which is responsible for design and management of the shuttle’s solid-fuel booster rocket program.
Former presidential aide Michael K. Deaver agreed to be questioned behind closed doors by a House subcommittee investigating his lobbying activities since he left the White House. Deaver agreed to appear before the House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee on May 16, said Michael Barrett, the panel’s counsel and staff director. The panel will ask the former deputy White House chief of staff about “a whole range” of issues, including Deaver’s possible lobbying of the White House on behalf of clients of his firm, Michael K. Deaver & Associates.
Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin said that if recent fund cuts were restored, he would spend the money on acquiring and cataloguing books rather than ending controversial early closings at the library. “We are not a public library. We are a national library,” Boorstin told a joint House-Senate hearing on the Library of Congress. In response to budget cuts, Boorstin virtually eliminated all evening hours, Sundays and holidays. The austerity move prompted almost daily demonstrations at the library, which have resulted in at least 18 arrests for unlawful entry.
If the 1988 presidential election were held now, Republican candidate George Bush and Democratic candidate Gary Hart would win about the same share of the popular vote, according to a new Gallup Poll test election. Senator Hart of Colorado currently is the choice of 46% of registered voters nationwide to 44% for Vice President Bush, with 10% naming other candidates or undecided. The latest figures are statistically unchanged from the results of a January poll in which Hart received 47% of the vote to Bush’s 45%.
The Senate today unanimously approved the most sweeping plan to reorganize the nation’s military hierarchy in nearly 30 years. The bill, which passed by a vote of 95 to 0, would enlarge the advisory role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, while giving field commanders more control over fighting forces in combat. The measure would reduce the authority of the heads of the individual services in an effort to increase cooperation among the Army, Navy and Air Force, which in the past have cherished their autonomy. Advocates of the changes have blamed poor coordination of joint efforts for a series of operational blunders including the failed hostage rescue mission in Iran in 1980, the terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, and communications flaws in the United States invasion of Grenada in 1983.
A federal judge yesterday dismissed damage suits brought against United States Government agencies by families of the passengers killed when a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 jet was shot down by a Soviet fighter in 1983. All 269 people on board were killed. The judge, Aubrey E. Robinson Jr., said in Federal District Court in Washington that neither the Federal Aviation Administration nor the Defense Department had failed to perform any required duties in connection with the flight, in which the airliner strayed more than 300 miles off course into Soviet airspace. Even if Government officials had been negligent in not somehow warning the South Korean crew, the judge said, the Soviet action in downing the craft would remove any liability from federal employees.
The managers of the program to seek a defense against long-range missiles say they realize they must not only design devices that work but must also find some way to drive down the cost dramatically. If the most effective missile defense costs too much, it will probably never be built, according to both opponents and proponents of the program. Congress has appropriated $4.15 billion in the last two years for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, which manages the program, and is to vote this year on a new request for $4.8 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. But even though that is the largest single item in the President’s military budget, it would be only seed money to prepare for spending even more money.
Truck drivers who haul hazardous materials would be required to undergo a drug screening in a rule proposed at a St. Louis news conference by Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole. She said the safety record of hauling dangerous materials is excellent but added that that alone “is no guarantee of future security.” The government’s proposal would require motor freight companies to establish a drug screening program for drivers who transport dangerous cargoes.
Three temblors rocked the Aleutians and unleashed a six-foot sea wave that hammered a Navy air station and headed toward Hawaii and the United States West Coast. The biggest of the three Pacific Ocean earthquakes measured 7.7 on the Richter scale. Officials, fearing that a tsunami, an ocean wave generated by the quakes, would cause extensive damage or loss of life, urged people in low-lying coastal areas to leave their homes. About 10,000 people in Hawaii, Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California complied, officials estimated. But the great wave officials feared apparently did not materialize.
Numerous killers are free because the authorities have been fooled or have accepted bogus murder confessions from a condemned killer, Henry Lee Lucas, just to clear cases, Attorney General Jim Mattox of Texas said today. Mr. Mattox said investigators who closed dozens of murder cases around the country based on the confessions had taken part in a “miscarriage of justice.” A report from the Texas Attorney General’s office said it was “highly unlikely” that the killer could have committed many of the more than 300 murders to which he confessed.
Six Job Corps centers will close late this year as a result of spending cuts mandated by the new deficit-reducing law, the Labor Department notified Congress. Congressional and Labor Department sources said the training centers to be closed are in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Missouri, Kentucky and Oklahoma.
Former Cook County Circuit Judge John F. Reynolds became the sixth judge convicted in the Operation Greylord investigation in Chicago of corruption in the nation’s largest court system. A federal court jury convicted Reynolds on 31 counts of mail fraud, two counts of racketeering and three counts of income tax fraud for accepting more than $60,000 in bribes to fix cases and steer clients to crooked attorneys. Reynolds faces a maximum sentence of 204 years in prison and a fine of $96,000, prosecutors said. A sentencing hearing is set for June 26.
A train packed with commuters slammed into a freight train in the morning fog at Boston, injuring 200 people as passengers were hurled through the cars seconds after the conductor yelled: “Brace yourselves.” Although most suffered only cuts and bruises in the crash of the four-car commuter train from Framingham, about five people were seriously hurt. Witnesses said the commuter train, which was carrying about 550 people, managed to slow down just before hitting the halted freight train.. Safety officials were investigating.
General Motors began to recall about 133,000 1982 model Chevrolet Chevette and Pontiac T-1000 cars to correct an emissions problem, the Environmental Protection Agency said. It said the problem, which makes the cars exceed federal limits for hydrocarbons and carbon-monoxide emissions, will be repaired without charge.
Millions of older American women live with limited income and are struggling to overcome age and sex discrimination, according to a report made public by the Older Women’s League. The report, which analyzes census data on the 40 million women aged 45 and older, found they were more likely than men to be living in poverty and to lack access to affordable health care.
West Virginia’s economy has undergone a basic shift in character. The 1980’s has been a period of painful adjustment to a contraction in mining and manufacturing. But experts say the worst is over and that West Virginians will increasingly prosper in service industries, particularly health care, high technology, research and tourism.
The USS Missouri (BB-63), after two wars, nearly 30 years of retirement as a floating museum and a $475 million refurbishment, has sailed into San Francisco Bay to start life anew as a warship. Escorted by a flotilla of smaller vessels and buzzing helicopters, the huge gray battleship slipped under the Golden Gate Bridge in a light drizzle just before noon Tuesday, passed Alcatraz Island and was docked in the shadow of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. As she came to a stop, hundreds of balloons were let into the air, a Navy band played “Anchors Aweigh,” and tears could be seen in the eyes of some of the people watching.
Some oil companies and environmental organizations have reached agreement under the sponsorship of the actor Robert Redford on what areas of the Bering Sea should be offered for oil and gas exploration, the Interior Department said today. Mr. Redford brought them together through his Institute for Resource Management in Salt Lake City. Robert Walker, a spokesman for the department, said parties to the agreement would present it to Secretary Donald P. Hodel Thursday.
Major League Baseball:
Thirty-six-year-old Phillies outfielder Garry Maddox, an 8-time Gold Glove winner, retires. Only Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays have won more Gold Gloves in the outfield.
The California Angels downed the Toronto Blue Jays, 6–2. Don Sutton allowed one run in six innings to post his 296th career victory as California rapped 12 hits. Sutton, who trailed 1–0 until rookie Wally Joyner’s two-run single with two outs in the fifth, snapped an eight-start winless drought dating back to last season. Doug Corbett went the final three innings for his second save.
Tommy John, playing the role of ageless wonder, completed a remarkable odyssey tonight by pitching the Yankees to a 5–1 victory over the hapless Chicago White Sox. John, two weeks short of his 43rd birthday, returned to the Yankees’ starting rotation after a hiatus of more than three seasons that had taken him to California, Oakland and, presumably, into retirement. However, he went to spring training with the Yankees as a nonroster player, pitched creditably enough to induce the Yankees to ask him to serve them on a standby basis and signed a contract last Friday. On that day, Manager Lou Piniella said John would be in the starting rotation, and tonight he began his new job in promising fashion. He gave up a run in the first inning, then shut out the White Sox for the next six innings, leaving after the seventh and having permitted five hits and two walks.
At Wrigley, Steve Sax hits a grand slam and the Dodgers beat the Cubs, 8–4. Sax has 5 RBIs. Sax’s grand slam, the first of his career, broke a 4–4 deadlock in the seventh inning. The home run was Sax’s third of the year and 16th of six-year major league career. Dave Anderson opened the seventh with a double off Jay Baller (1–1). Mike Scioscia walked and Mariano Duncan singled before Sax hit the first pitch through a 19-mile-per-hour wind into the left-field seats. Earlier, Sax knocked in a run on a groundout. His five runs batted in were also a career high. Tom Niedenfuer (1–2), who entered the game with one out in the sixth, was the winner.
Pat Tabler doubled in two runs and scored on Mel Hall’s double in the fifth inning tonight, helping the Cleveland Indians stretch their winning streak to 10 games with a 7–1 victory over the Kansas City Royals. The streak is Cleveland’s longest since winning 11 straight games May 23-June 4, 1982. The Indians swept a series from the Royals for the first time since taking a three-game set July 9-11, 1979, at Cleveland Stadium. But the first-place Tribe will drop 9 of their next 10. Neal Heaton (1–1) allowed seven hits, struck out four and walked none in pitching his first complete game of the season. The left-hander lost a shutout on Willie Wilson’s fielder’s-choice grounder in the fifth. Bret Saberhagen (2–3) absorbed his first career loss to Cleveland after three victories.
Tom Brunansky homered twice and Mike Smithson yielded nine hits to lead the Twins to a 5–2 win over the Orioles. Smithson (4–2) struck out three and walked three in pitching his fifth complete game. The Twins, who snapped a three-game losing streak, built a 3–0 lead off Mike Flanagan (1–4), the Baltimore starter.
At the end — after the bloop single to center and the run-saving stop at third base and the harrowing catch in right field — Jesse Orosco turned and shook Ray Knight’s hand. The Mets did not win this one easily, but they won. Again. Orosco and Knight were not principal players until the ninth inning last night. Then, in the critical moments, they made the contributions that lifted the Mets to a 3–2 decision over the Houston Astros and prolonged another winning streak. The Mets, whose 18–4 start ranks as one of the 10 best in National League history, won their fifth game in a row, and 16th in 17 games. But this victory was filled with harrowing turns. Darryl Strawberry unloaded a two-run homer in the third and made the catch that put an end to the evening, but it was Knight who may have preserved the streak with a diving stop of a sharp bouncer inside the third-base line by Phil Garner
Rookie Bill Bathe hit two home runs, his first in the major leagues, and drove in three runs to lead Oakland to a 7–6 victory over the Brewers. Bathe broke a 3–3 tie with a two-run homer in the fourth inning. Joaquin Andujar, 4–1, got his fourth consecutive pitching victory to stop a five-game Milwaukee winning streak. But he lasted only five innings, giving up five hits and four runs. Steve Ontiveros, the third Oakland pitcher, worked the last two innings for his second save. He gave up Cecil Cooper’s two-run single in the ninth.
Tim Raines singled twice, stole two bases and scored three times the Expos post their fifth straight triumph, beating the Phillies, 8–2. Floyd Youmans (1–3) gave up only three hits, walked three and struck out eight over seven innings to gain the victory. He needed relief help in the eighth from Tim Burke, who got his third save. Shane Rawley (3–3) took the loss for the Phillies, who have dropped three in a row and six of their last seven games. The Expos stole seven bases in the game to tie a club record.
Bob Brenley’s two-run double keyed a three-run first inning, and Candy Maldonado knocked in the deciding run with a fifth-inning double as the San Francisco Giants won their fourth game in a row, downing the Pirates, 7–2. Maldonado’s double helped the Giants build a 6–2 lead against Larry McWilliams (0–3), who surrendered 10 hits in four and a third innings. The Pirates’ Johnny Ray, the league’s leading hitter, went 3 for 4 to run his hitting streak to nine games. The win actually moved the Giants into first place in the National League West. Last year, the Giants lost 100 of the 162 games.
Bill Buckner hit a three-run homer and Jim Rice added a two-run shot as the Boston Red Sox pounded out 13 hits to rout Seattle, 11–5, in a game punctuated by a bench-clearing incident. Buckner, who led Boston to its eighth victory in 10 games, was one of three players ejected in a bizarre contest which also saw Seattle manager Chuck Cottier chased.
The Cardinals edged the Padres, 4–3, in extra innings. Ozzie Smith tripled off Rich Gossage to start the 12th inning and scored on Jose Oquendo’s single as St. Louis won at home for the first time since April 12. St. Louis kept the Padres from scoring for 10 straight innings after Steve Garvey’s two-run homer helped give San Diego a first-inning lead.
The Texas Rangers edged the Detroit Tigers, 2–1. Steve Buechele hit a two-out tie-breaking home run in the seventh inning to spoil a strong pitching performance by Detroit’s Jack Morris (3–4). Buechele’s fifth homer of the season, made a winner of the reliever Dwayne Henry (1–0), who pitched two and one-third hitless innings. He struck out five and did not walk anyone. Greg Harris pitched the ninth for his fifth save.
The scheduled game between the Atlanta Braves and the Reds at Cincinnati was postponed due to rain. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on June 20.
Toronto Blue Jays 2, California Angels 6
New York Yankees 5, Chicago White Sox 1
Los Angeles Dodgers 8, Chicago Cubs 4
Kansas City Royals 1, Cleveland Indians 7
Baltimore Orioles 2, Minnesota Twins 5
Houston Astros 2, New York Mets 3
Milwaukee Brewers 6, Oakland Athletics 7
Montreal Expos 8, Philadelphia Phillies 2
San Francisco Giants 7, Pittsburgh Pirates 5
Boston Red Sox 11, Seattle Mariners 5
San Diego Padres 3, St. Louis Cardinals 4
Detroit Tigers 1, Texas Rangers 2
A sharp drop in the price of I.B.M. shares was the catalyst for a selloff yesterday on Wall Street, where investors were already concerned about the impact of this week’s $27 billion Treasury refunding and tax revision. “People are looking for a rationale to sell, rather than a stimulus to buy,” said Michael Metz, a market analyst with Oppenheimer & Company. The action of International Business Machines stock, which often dictates the direction of the overall market, provided the perfect excuse for profit taking, he said. The Dow Jones industrial average, down nearly 28 points during the day, finished the session at 1,775.30, for a loss of 12.65 points.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1775.3 (-12.65)
Born:
Nate Prosser, NHL defenseman (Minnesota Wild, St. Louis Blues), in Elk River, Minnesota.
Anton Khudobin, Russian NHL goaltender (Minnesota Wild, Boston Bruins, Carolina Hurricanes, Anaheim Ducks, Dallas Stars, Chicago Blackhawks), in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Craig Steltz, NFL safety (Chicago Bears), in Metairie, Louisiana.
Armond Smith, NFL running abck (Cleveland Browns, Carolina Panthers), in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
Matee Ajavon, Liberian-American WNBA guard (Houston Comets, Washington Mystics, Atlanta Dream), in Monrovia, Liberia.
Matt Helders, English musician and drummer (Arctic Monkeys), in Sheffield, England, United Kingdom.
Frances Quinlan, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Hop Along; Likewise), in New Jersey.
Mark Furze, Australian actor (“Home and Away”, “Underbelly”), in New South Wales, Australia.
Died:
Jeffrey Mylett, 36, American actor and songwriter (“Godspell”), from complications of HIV/AIDS.
History Diaries 