The Soviet Government said today that six people had died from “radiation and burns” suffered in the wake of the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. The announcement marks the first time anyone is known to have died from radiation emitted by a civilian nuclear power plant. The deaths were reported on the main evening television news program on the same day as the official Soviet press began to report punishments of local Communist Party members accused of shirking their duties during the evacuation of areas near the Chernobyl plant. Although the three people mentioned were officials of the Chernobyl branch of an organization of nuclear plant construction workers, apparently not responsible for operating or maintaining the Chernobyl plant, one Western diplomat said the action might signal the start of a cycle of retribution that could reach higher into party ranks. In Brussels, after a week of complicated and at times embarrassing negotiations, the European Common Market announced a ban on meat, live animals and produce from Eastern Europe because of the Soviet nuclear accident. Fallout readings and other analysis suggest that fire from the damaged reactor probably shot 1,000 feet into the air for two days, carrying radiation from an exposed nuclear fuel core, scientists studying the accident said. The wording of the government communique on the new deaths suggested that they were in addition to the two deaths reported nearly two weeks ago, which were attributed to steam burns and falling debris. Thus the new report apparently brings the number of officially confirmed deaths from the Chernobyl disaster to eight.
The communique also said 35 people were in “grave condition,” nearly twice as many as had previously been reported. There was no indication from the announcement exactly where the victims had been when they suffered the radiation exposure. On Friday, Hans Blix, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported that “204 persons, including nuclear power station personnel and firefighters, were affected by radiation from the first degree to the fourth degree.” Mr. Blix said that, until Chernobyl, no one was known to have died of radiation from a nuclear power plant. Deaths have been reported previously in accidents involving nuclear materials, including accidents at research reactors and a plutonium production plant. The government newspaper Izvestia reported that the total number of evacuees in the wake of the disaster stands at 92,000. The previous figure given for the number of evacuees was 84,000; the total has been increased several times since the disaster was made public. Until now, reports about the accident in the Soviet press have had the heroic flavor of war stories, with one power plant official asserting that “there were no deserters, no one refused to do his job, everyone performed his duty.”
Fallout readings and other analysis suggest that fire from the Chernobyl reactor probably shot more than a thousand feet into the air for two days, carrying radiation from an exposed nuclear fuel core, three scientists studying the accident said yesterday. The experts, one of them a Soviet-born engineer who helped design a nearly identical Soviet plant, gave a technical briefing for a small group of reporters yesterday at the World Trade Center headquarters of Ebasco Services, Inc., a major reactor builder, where they are employed. They provided many new details of the probable course of the accident at the Chernobyl plant near Kiev. They added that they checked their conclusions, also based on knowledge of Soviet reactors and checmical calculations, with numerous other American scientists, who agreed.
A month before the Chernobyl disaster, a Ukrainian journal reported management failures and labor dissatisfaction at the nuclear power plant. The account also said that the head of construction at the Chernobyl station “took a risk” in 1984 in suggesting that work on the No. 5 unit be speeded up to put it into operation in 1986 instead of 1987, as originally planned. Unit 5 was under construction at the time of the accident, which involved Unit 4, in operation since 1983. The description of conditions at the Chernobyl station, published in the literary monthly Vitchyzna, was the second criticism of the plant published by Ukrainian-language literary publications in Kiev in March. The literary newspaper Literaturna Ukraina, which appears twice a week, reported March 27 that substandard construction was threatening plant safety.
After a week of complicated and at times embarrassing negotiations, the European Community announced agreement today on a ban on meat, live animals and produce from Eastern Europe because of the Soviet nuclear accident. The ban, which was approved by community foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, is scheduled to last until the end of the month, when it will be reviewed. The foreign ministers failed to agree on a single standard that would apply to food grown within the community itself, and essentially decided to let the 12 countries apply their own standards.
Radioactive fallout from the nuclear accident two weeks ago in the Soviet Union was being measured throughout the United States yesterday. However, officials from the Environmental Protection Agency said that increased radiation levels were hardly perceptible and that they posed no danger to the public. Priscilla Smith, an agency representative, said the first radioactive activity in the country was measured last week when a very high cloud mass propelled from West to East across the country by the jet stream produced rainfall with minute traces of radioactive Iodine 131 in such places as Salt Lake City, Utah; Jacksonville, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Albany, New York. But she said the radioactive levels were “barely above background levels,” which she described as levels that appear normally in the environment.
Former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger said the Reagan Administration’s decision to use F-111 fighter-bombers stationed in Britain for last month’s attack on Libya was based on political rather than military grounds. The raid could have been mounted solely by carrier-based planes, Schlesinger said, but President Reagan wanted to show that he had at least some European support for the attack. Among Washington’s European allies, only Britain supported the assault.
Congressional leaders from both parties brushed aside criticism from the Reagan Administration today and said they would push ahead with deep cuts in budget requests for both foreign aid and embassy security programs. They said that the criticism was particularly unwelcome, and unfair, because President Reagan has refused to consider any revenue increases to help reduce the budget deficit and to finance Government programs. Representative William H. Gray 3d, the Pennsylvania Democrat who heads the House Budget Committee, said he had an angry, 15-minute conversation last week with Secretary of State George P. Shultz on budget matters while the Secretary was traveling in Asia. According to Mr. Gray, he told Mr. Shultz: “You want more money, you tell your President to bring it by.” Mr. Gray said Mr. Shultz lectured him on the negative impact that would result from planned cuts in the State Department budget. The Pennsylvania Democrat then delivered a lecture of his own, outlining the impact of budget cuts on agriculture, housing, and other segments of the domestic economy. Mr. Shultz told reporters Sunday that the proposed reductions would be “a tragedy for United States foreign policy.” He said he would “drop everything else” to lobby for his requests.
A 25-year-old Tunisian has confessed that he carried out three terrorist acts, including the bombings of Marks & Spencer department stores in Paris and London, the French Interior Ministry said today. A ministry spokesman said that Habib Maammar, who had been living illegally in France for several years, was charged today in the eastern city of Nancy with terrorist acts and illegal possession of explosives, which the police found in his apartment. Two women, an Algerian named Souad Aissaoui and a Frenchwoman named Isabelle Frigerio, were charged with possessing explosives and concealing a criminal. No Foreign Government Link Robert Pandraud, Deputy Interior Minister in charge of security, said there was no indication “that any government of a foreign power” was involved. Western nations have charged the Libyan and Syrian Governments with sponsoring terrorism.
Prosecutors have decided not to investigate West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in connection with charges that he lied to a parliamentary committee, a West German newspaper reported. The Bonn prosecutor found the charges “not tenable” and decided to drop the case without a formal investigation, the daily Die Welt said. The inquiry was based on a criminal complaint filed by a Greens party deputy charging that Kohl lied in November, 1984, when he said he did not receive $27,500 in the Flick corporate-bribery scandal.
As a first lieutenant in the German Army in World War II, Kurt Waldheim provided information that helped deport thousands of Italian soldiers into forced labor in Germany after Italy’s surrender to the Allies in 1943, according to German war documents. According to Robert E. Herzstein, professor of history at the University of South Carolina, the documents indicate that Mr. Waldheim was involved not merely in information gathering, as he has said, but directly in operations and in intelligence during his service in the Balkans between 1942 and 1945. “They show that Mr. Waldheim played an extremely important role in the massive deportation process, a process that was considered vital by the Reich to secure Italian labor for the German war effort,” said Dr. Herzstein, who found the documents in the National Archives in Washington. These documents do not suggest that Mr. Waldheim committed any war crimes, the historian said.
United Nations officials said today that they had renewed their demands to the Rumanian Government for information on a Rumanian official employed by the world organization who has been forbidden to return here after being called to Bucharest last December for “urgent consultations.” The United Nations officials said they had taken the action in behalf of the Rumanian official, Liviu Bota, after his wife was found unconscious outside their apartment in New York Sunday and taken to the intensive care unit of Geneva’s state hospital suffering from an apparent overdose of drugs.
Elizabeth Bergner died at her London home at the age of 85. Stage successes of the Vienesse-born actress included “Saint Joan,” “Strange Interlude,” “The Two Mrs. Carrolls” and many Shakespearean productions. Miss Bergner’s film successes included “Escape Me Never” and “Catherine the Great.”
Moshe Arens, former Israeli defense minister, said that Israel is discussing cooperation with Japan on defense-related technology, including possible Japanese plans to build a new fighter aircraft. Arens noted that Israel is in the process of developing its own plane, the Lavi, and said this experience could be shared with the Japanese. Tokyo is considering the U.S.-made F-18 and F-16, the European-made Tornado and a fourth possibility — building the new plane in Japan with imported technology.
In the last few months the Syrian Army has been building forward artillery and tank trenches in southern Lebanon that are closer to the Israeli border, Israeli and Western military sources said today. So far, the Syrians have not installed any military hardware in the trenches, which have been carved to provide earthen protection to fit both armor and long-range artillery pieces, the Israeli and Western sources said. Nonetheless, there is considerable concern among Israeli military and political leaders about what they call the Syrian “creeping” to within 10 to 15 miles of the Israel-Lebanon border, and only 5 to 10 miles from the strip that Israel has declared a “security zone” in southern Lebanon. The development accounts in part for the current tension between the two countries.
The Reagan Administration opened a campaign today to overturn the Congressional actions last week that blocked the sale of $354 million worth of missiles to Saudi Arabia. Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said President Reagan would soon engage in “hard lobbying” to persuade key senators to reverse their votes and allow the sale to go ahead. White House aides believe that with Mr. Reagan’s full support, they can switch enough votes to sustain a veto. Later, Mr. Speakes, in a move designed to justify the missile sale, announced that Iran had attacked two Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Persian Gulf in the last eight days. He said the Administration “is deeply concerned” that the Congressional action against the projected Saudi arms sales “may have created the misperception that the U.S. commitment to freedom of navigation in the gulf and Saudi self-defense has diminished.” A principal argument for the sale of three different kinds of missiles to the Saudis has been that it would demonstrate American support for the kingdom and act to deter Iran from mounting attacks on Saudi Arabia.
Qatar has freed 17 of the 30 foreign workers it seized last month in a territorial dispute with Bahrain and has said it intends to release the remaining prisoners soon, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said today. The 17 workers, who include a Dutchman and two Britons, were set free Sunday and were expected to fly to Bahrain today, a ministry spokeswoman said. The workers were arrested by Qatari troops on a disputed Persian Gulf reef where they were preparing the ground for a Bahraini coast guard station.
Libya today ordered 36 staff members of seven Western European embassies expelled in what it called a retaliation for “oppressive” Western measures. Several Western countries recently expelled Libyan diplomats as part of a campaign against terrorism. Libya said diplomats from the Italian, West German, Belgian, Spanish, French, Dutch and Danish embassies had been given a week to 10 days to leave. The move was announced by JANA, the Libyan press agency.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, in an unexpected step during a Cabinet shuffle, today promoted a Sikh ostracized by much of the Sikh population to India’s top security post. Mr. Gandhi, who has been challenged by militant Sikh separatists in Punjab State, made Agriculture Minister Buta Singh the Home Minister. Mr. Gandhi also dismissed External Affairs Minister Bali Ram Bhagat, who had served the Prime Minister’s mother and grandfather. He was replaced by Commerce Minister P. Shiv Shankar. Sikh religious leaders blamed Mr. Singh for the June 1984 army assault against Sikh extremists in the Golden Temple of Amritsar. He was declared a “sinner” and Sikhs were ordered to ostracize him in the first step to full excommunication. Mr. Singh replaced the veteran politician P. V. Narasimha Rao, who was named Home Minister only two months ago.
A customs officer told Sri Lanka police that terrorists coerced him into planting a bomb aboard an Air Lanka jet by threatening to kill his family, police sources said. Sixteen people died on May 3 when the bomb exploded. The suspect is one of at least five in custody. Investigators believe that the bombing was the work of Tamil separatists.
Millions of Nepalese, ignoring bomb threats by terrorists opposed to the monarchy, cast ballots today for a new Parliament. At least seven people were hurt in minor unrest. Officials estimated that about 60 percent of the nine million registered voters cast ballots in Nepal’s third direct parliamentary election. First results were not expected until Wednesday, and the outcome will not be known until about May 24 because of poor communications with remote districts.
At least three Cambodian refugees under the care of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have been tortured by Thai soldiers responsible for security at the camp where they were housed, according to Amnesty International and international aid organizations. The reported torture, involving hot irons and rods, took place in the Khao I Dang refugee holding center in late March, according to a worldwide “urgent action” appeal issued by Amnesty International’s headquarters in London on May 6. People associated with aid organizations working along the Thai-Cambodian border said officials of the United Nations High Commissioner’s office here have not been allowed to visit the victims, who are apparently still being held by security forces at the camp. The names of the Cambodians have been reported as Chhel Theuan or Chhel Thuon, Kaev Moyoura or Kaev Mayara, and Kaev Channa. The name of a possible fourth victim is still unknown.
Taiwan’s ruling Nationalist Party has signaled that it is ready to accept organized political opposition, a senior party source said. Over the last few days, the Nationalists have been hammering out a compromise with opposition politicians to allow them for the first time to set up permanent offices in Taiwan, the source said. The Nationalists have reportedly stopped short of allowing a formal opposition party but have conceded that the offices will have a political character. The Nationalists banned all new parties after taking refuge in Taiwan in 1949.
Former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos said in a telephone interview with reporters here today that he was in “constant contact” with the State Department, which he said was helping him and his family in their attempt to travel to another country. “Right now, the State Department is trying to work out for us more comfortable circumstances under which we can travel outside, return to the United States and keep our lives as normal as possible,” Mr. Marcos said at his residence in Honolulu. Mr. Marcos said United States officials had also been in touch with foreign governments who might agree to provide a home for him and his family.
Canadian Industry Minister Sinclair Stevens resigned as controversy increased over a reported conflict of interest between his duties and private business. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney agreed to Stevens’ request for an independent inquiry. The former official has faced opposition attacks since it was disclosed that his wife got a $2.6-million loan from a wealthy businessman with direct connections to a company awarded grants by Stevens’ ministry.
The State Department called on the Government of Mexico today to “halt the production and trafficking of drugs in its territory.” Echoing earlier comments by Administration officials, a department spokesman, Charles E. Redman, said at a briefing here today that there had been a “sharp increase in the amount of drugs,” particularly marijuana and heroin, “entering the U.S. from Mexico.” He said the most significant reason for the increase was “more widespread and more deeply entrenched corruption among officials nominally engaged in antinarcotics programs.” A Mexican Embassy official, Leonardo Ffrench Iduarte, said: “It is deeply unfair and even ridiculous for certain officers of a country like the United States, who have been unable to solve their own internal drug trafficking problem despite almost unlimited resources, to ask a poor country like Mexico to solve not only its own problem but the United States’ problem as well.”
At least 62 voodoo priests have been killed in Haiti in a violent campaign against the nation’s traditional religion since the fall of President Jean-Claude Duvalier in February, government spokeswoman Anaise Chavenet said. The Haitian Office of Ethnology has compiled a list of the 62 slain male and female priests, most of whom were reportedly accused of being witches or other practitioners of black magic. Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier drew on voodoo practices in his efforts to control and intimidate the Haitian people during his rule from 1957 to 1971, and his son and successor, Jean-Claude, followed this pattern.
The General Accounting Office told Congress today that Michael K. Deaver “appears” to have violated conflict-of-interest laws. The agency sent its findings to the Justice Department for use in considering whether the lobbyist should be prosecuted. The G.A.O., an investigative arm of Congress, conducted a five-month study of Mr. Deaver’s role, during and after his service as White House deputy chief of staff, in moving the Reagan Administration toward an agreement on acid rain with Canada. Mr. Deaver, an intimate of President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, left the White House a year ago to form a lobbying business that represents several foreign governments, including Canada’s. Congressional investigators and the Justice Department are seeking to determine whether Mr. Deaver violated laws that restrict the lobbying activities of former public officials.
Nearly six months before the Challenger disaster, the space agency was given results of a test showing that safety seals in the space shuttle’s booster rockets could fail at temperatures of 50 degrees or lower, according to a newly disclosed document. Ruptures of both the primary and backup seals of the booster rockets have been blamed for the January 28 disaster, which killed the seven astronauts aboard. The Challenger was launched in 36-degree weather, far colder than at any previous shuttle launching. It disintegrated 74 seconds later. The newly disclosed document is an August 1985 letter by an engineer for the rockets’ manufacturer, Morton Thiokol Inc., to officials at the space agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The letter appears to call into question early testimony by space agency officials to the Presidential investigative commission that there was no clear correlation between low temperatures and failure of the seals.
The new document describes the results of a laboratory test designed to determine if a backup O ring seal, whose function becomes critical if the primary seal ruptures, can remain in contact with the rocket casing during launching. “At 100 degrees Fahrenheit the O ring maintained contact,” says the letter by Brian G. Russell, dated August 9. “At 75 degrees Fahrenheit the O ring lost contact for 2.4 seconds. At 50 degrees Fahrenheit the O ring did not re-establish contact in 10 minutes at which time the test was terminated.” The document was made public Saturday along with 300 pages of recent testimony before the Presidential panel investigating the accident. One source close to the commission called the letter “the closest thing we’ve got to a smoking gun,” noting that it shows that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was clearly informed that the backup seal could not be relied upon even in warmer temperatures than there were at the time of the launching. The warning would seem to apply also to the primary seal, which is made of the same material. But in a telephone interview yesterday, Lawrence B. Mulloy, who headed the booster rocket program at the Marshall center, said the information from the test “was not conclusive.”
President Reagan meets with James C. Fletcher, Administrator-designate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and his family.
The President and First Lady host a luncheon to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Reagan, presenting the nation’s highest civilian award to the medical pioneer Albert B. Sabin and six other Americans, hailed them today as rebels who defied conventional wisdom and won greatness. After an East Room luncheon, Mr. Reagan and his wife, Nancy, presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Dr. Sabin, developer of the oral polio vaccine, Helen Hayes, the actress, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, Earl (Red) Blaik, the former West Point football coach, the journalist Vermont Royster, and Walter H. Annenberg, the former ambassador and publisher. “You’re a group of happy rebels,” Mr. Reagan said, reminding them that George Orwell had once said, “Freedom is the right to say ‘no.’ “
The amount of uncollected federal taxes soared to $45 billion last year — a 31% increase — and the budget proposed for the Internal Revenue Service offers little hope of correcting the problem, government auditors said. The General Accounting Office cautioned Congress that requiring the IRS to share in mandatory budget cuts with most other government agencies could make matters worse. “IRS stands virtually alone on the ‘revenue side’ of the government,” GAO spokesman Johnny C. Finch told a House oversight subcommittee. Contributing to the soaring total of unpaid accounts, the IRS said, are a 46% increase in the amounts owed on tax returns and a backlog of several billion dollars’ worth of unposted payments and account adjustments resulting from massive computer problems last year.
The House passed a bill to relax immigration law briefly so a group of immigrants from all over the nation can be naturalized July 3 on Ellis Island. The bill would suspend for 48 hours a provision in the law that says immigrants must be naturalized in the federal court district in which they reside. The Senate is expected to approve the bill this week. The citizenship ceremony, to be conducted by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, will mark the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island centennial.
The U.S. Customs Service plans to put 125 more agents in Texas as part of a “strike force” aimed at newly identified drug trafficking centers on the Texas-Mexico border and the Gulf Coast, Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas) said. Gramm announced the increase in agents at a news conference in his Washington office. Gramm said the cost of the additional agents would be borne by lower priority Customs programs. He said that a total of about 200 agents would be added along the U.S.-Mexico border and that about 20 already had been hired.
Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court said today that the “excruciating agony” of last-minute death penalty decisions had “haunted and debilitated the Court” during its most recent session. The term that began last October was “perhaps the most difficult of my 16 years in Washington,” Justice Blackmun told Federal judges at the the annual conference of the 11th Federal Judicial Circuit.
Several teary-eyed parents described for federal immunization experts how their children suffered or died from a controversial vaccine called DPT (for diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus). At least seven parents made presentations to the national Centers for Disease Control’s Immunization Practices Advisory Committee, which is meeting in Atlanta to discuss vaccines and preventive drugs, CDC spokeswoman Betty Hooper said. “Most of them had a child who had had some kind of reaction that ran from mild to severe to death,” she said.
The Air Force intends to buy dozens of additional rockets to help clear its satellite-launching backlog, a top military official said today. Edward Aldridge, acting Air Force Secretary, told reporters that the service would seek to buy a new launching vehicle capable of lifting medium-weight satellites into orbit that could compete with the European Ariane rocket. That vehicle, officials said, could be ready in about two years. He said the Air Force would also seek to double the number of rockets it buys to launch heavy military satellites, and to expand its program of refurbishing old ballistic missiles to launch light satellites.
A Wall Street merger specialist was charged today with using confidential information illegally in a trading scheme that reaped at least $12.6 million in profits while he was employed at three major investment banking firms. The case was the largest insider trading action ever brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and it highlighted the potential for abuse of confidential information in the multibillion-dollar world of corporate acquisitions. Wall Street investment bankers, fearing damage to their industry’s reputation, expressed dismay. The commission charged the merger specialist, Dennis B. Levine, 33, until today a managing director of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., with buying and selling stock and stock options in 54 different companies from 1980 through the end of 1985 based on sensitive information he possessed about pending mergers, acquisitions and buyouts financed with heavy debt. The transactions took place while Mr. Levine was employed at Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Company, Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb Inc. (now Shearson Lehman Brothers) and Drexel Burnham. The trades were transacted through an investment company in the Bahamas.
Members of the City Council’s opposition bloc filed suit today seeking to block 25 appointments by Mayor Harold Washington that were approved in the first meeting since he gained control of the council. The lawsuit, filed in Circuit Court by Alderman Fred Roti, contends that Mr. Washington, who cast the tie-breaking vote on each of the appointments, violated parliamentary rules at Friday’s special Council session. The meeting was the first since Mr. Washington won four new allies in special ward elections, bringing the warring council factions to 25 members each — with the Mayor holding the deciding vote. The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order to block seating of the 25 appointees, a declaratory judgment that the appointments were improperly approved and a permanent injunction barring them.
The former wife of John A. Walker Jr., the man who pleaded guilty last year to leading a spy ring for the Soviet Union, said today that she told Jerry A. Whitworth in 1973 that she knew her husband was recruiting him as a spy. The witness, Barbara Joy Crowley Walker, was testifying at Mr. Whitworth’s espionage trial in Federal District Court. She said Mr. Whitworth told her he was hesitating because Mr. Walker “bragged too much and couldn’t be trusted.”
Eastern Airlines said today that it had offered to pay the Federal Aviation Administration a record $3.5 million fine for alleged violations of safety rules but that the agency was sticking to its demand for $9.5 million. Frank Borman, Eastern’s chairman, called the case the Government had brought against the airline grossly unfair and said it “bodes ill for air safety.” He told a news conference at his headquarters here that he understood the pressure the Reagan Administration was under because of the public concern about air safety. But he said most of the charges made against Eastern, essentially for violating maintenance procedures were wrong and that he was taking a stand on principle.
A revival of cottage industries is prompting local governments across the nation to struggle to preserve residential neighborhoods without impeding the rising number of Americans who work at home. Zoning bars and ordinances regulating such businesses are being debated in courts and by the governing bodies of many localities.
Bernard Sanders, the Socialist Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, formally announced his candidacy for governor today in a move that will complicate the re-election campaign of Madeleine Kunin, a liberal Democrat. Mr. Sanders, in announcing his candidacy this morning at the state office building here, said: “We have not entered this race to win only 10 percent of the vote. We are in to win.” He insisted that there was little difference between Governor Kunin and her Republican opponent, so voters should not worry about his helping in a Republican victory. “It is absolutely fair to say you are dealing with Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” he said.
Firefighters using aircraft, tractors and shovels inched closer to containing a 14-mile-long blaze that has consumed 75,000 acres in its weeklong, erratic path through swampy southeastern North Carolina. As 75 fresh firefighters were brought in, officials hoped that steady winds would keep the flames away from populated areas to the north. More than 5,000 people have been evacuated, but only two buildings have been destroyed. “The fire didn’t spread,” said Bob Grady of the state Forest Service. “I would expect they should be able to contain it tomorrow,” he said.
Great Lakes fish contain potentially dangerous levels of the suspected carcinogen dioxin, according to preliminary results of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study. The highest amounts of the chemical were measured in Lake Ontario, where some fish contained concentrations far above levels considered safe for consumption by some Great Lakes states, EPA officials told a news conference in Chicago. Although consumers still can safely eat fish from the Great Lakes, “If you consume great amounts of fish (from the lakes) over a period of time, then it would be of great concern,” EPA spokesman Peter Wise said.
Fred Markham (U.S.), unpaced & unaided by wind, is 1st to pedal 65 mph on a level course, Big Sand Flat, California.
Major League Baseball:
The Baltimore Orioles edged the Chicago White Sox, 4–3. Lee Lacy singled home the winning run with two outs in the ninth after Jim Dwyer had tied the game with a home run as Baltimore rallied. Rich Bordi (1-0), who pitched to one batter in relief of Scott McGregor, the starter, was the winner. Bob James (1-3), who worked the ninth inning for Chicago, was the loser.
Wally Joyner, the Angels’ rookie first baseman, drove in four runs with his 11th and 12th homers, and Don Sutton won the 297th game of his career as California snapped Boston’s five-game winning streak, dumping the Red Sox, 7–1. Joyner, who leads the major leagues with 33 runs batted in, hit a bases-empty shot in the first, and connected with two on in the fourth. He matched his personal professional best for homers in a season — he had 12 for Waterbury of the Eastern League in 1984 and equaled that last season with Edmonton of the Pacific Coast League. Sutton (2-3) allowed five hits over seven innings before getting relief help from Terry Forster.
Texas routs Cleveland 19–2, handing the Indians their 4th straight loss after they had won 10 in a row to move into a first–place tie in the American League East. Tom Paciorek goes 5-for–6 to lead the Rangers’ 22-hit attack. The 19 runs were the most ever in a game for Texas. The 22 hits tied a team record. Charlie Hough (2-0) allowed four hits over six innings as Texas won its third straight. One fan tosses a glass bottle at Jim Kern after he allows 8 runs in 1 ⅓ innings of relief.
Shane Rawley pitched a seven-hitter and Von Hayes hit three doubles and drove in two runs to help Philadelphia beat Houston, 5–1. Rawley (4-3) got help with three double plays as he recorded his third complete game. Jim Deshaies (0-1) allowed four Philadelphia runs in four and one-third innings.
Jim Sundberg had a three-run homer and Steve Balboni had two hits and drove in two runs as Kansas City handed Detroit its fifth loss in six games, winning, 6–5. Danny Jackson (1-0) allowed six hits and two runs in seven innings for the victory.
By the time Dennis Rasmussen walked out to the pitcher’s mound in the bottom of the ninth inning tonight, it was already a 9–2 game. The Yankee offense had finally come to life, and now Rasmussen was on the verge of clearing an important hurdle. He was about to throw his first complete game this season. But everything turned. The Yankee left-hander wilted, and the Minnesota Twins surged for six runs in the bottom of the ninth — three of them off Mike Armstrong on a two-out homer by Kirby Puckett — before finally falling short. At the end, Dave Righetti induced Kent Hrbek to hit a grounder to preserve a 9–8 Yankee victory and put the team in a tie for first. Butch Wynegar hit a three-run home run in the eighth, and the Yankees later added two unearned runs in the same inning, but none of them seemed critically important at the time. Not until the Twins came back. “They can be down,” a respectful Rickey Henderson said later, “but they always keep battling you.”
Eddie Milner hit a home run with two outs in the ninth inning tonight to give the Cincinnati Reds a 4-3 victory over Montreal and snap the Expos’ eight-game winning streak. Milner’s home run over the right-field fence came after Bert Roberge (0-1), a reliever, retired the first two batters. Roberge was making his first appearance for Montreal since being recalled May 1. Ted Power (1-3), a reliever, pitched one and two-thirds innings for the victory. The Expos tied the game, 3-3, in the eighth inning. Tim Wallach was hit by a John Denny pitch and Andres Galarraga and Vance Law walked to load the bases. Al Newman then hit a sacrifice fly off Joe Price. Montreal’s Tim Raines extended his hitting streak to 16 games.
With a .211 batting average, Tim Teufel was the weakest hitter in the Mets’ starting lineup last night. Even Sid Fernandez, the pitcher, had a better average (.250). Teufel, though, stroked three singles, and the third brought Ray Knight home from second base in the ninth inning to give the Mets a 1-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves. “It shows the kind of makeup we have,” Teufel said later. “We’re not going to fall apart because we lost a one-run game the day before.” Knight’s leadoff double and Teufel’s ensuing single brought a sudden end to a game in which Fernandez pitched seven shutout innings and Roger McDowell two, their second combined shutout of the season. Fernandez was particularly good, allowing four hits and a season-low single walk while striking out 10.
Lloyd Moseby had three hits and scored three runs Monday night, leading the Toronto Blue Jays to a 5-3 victory over the Oakland A’s. Joaquin Andujar, 4-2, took the loss, ending his personal four-game winning streak.
Dave Henderson hit two homers, and Matt Young allowed three hits in seven innings of relief for Seattle, as the Mariners shut out the Brewers, 6–0. Young (3-2) relieved in the third inning after Milt Wilcox pulled a muscle while warming up. Young struck out eight and walked four. Steve Yeager broke open the game in the sixth inning with a three-run homer. The Mariners have won three of four games since Dick Williams took over as manager.
Chicago White Sox 3, Baltimore Orioles 4
Boston Red Sox 1, California Angels 7
Texas Rangers 19, Cleveland Indians 2
Philadelphia Phillies 5, Houston Astros 1
Detroit Tigers 5, Kansas City Royals 6
New York Yankees 9, Minnesota Twins 8
Cincinnati Reds 4, Montreal Expos 3
Atlanta Braves 0, New York Mets 1
Toronto Blue Jays 5, Oakland Athletics 3
Milwaukee Brewers 0, Seattle Mariners 6
With participants fearing that both interest rates and oil prices were rising, the stock market yesterday suffered a setback, but only a minor one, as investors again decided that doing nothing was better than either buying or selling shares. “It’s pretty clear that bonds are the culprit,” said Robert Colby, a market analyst with Smith Barney, Harris, Upham & Company, who said yesterday’s decline could set the stage for further reversals. The Dow Jones industrial average, which generally moved higher in uneventful trading over the last week, fell 2.10 yesterday, to 1,787.33. The blue-chip index was strong during parts of the session, but gave in to pressure exerted by the bond market, where interest rates were rising moderately.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1787.33 (-2.1)
Born:
Emily VanCamp, Canadian actress (“Revenge”, “Captain America” films), in Port Perry, Ontario, Canada.
Mouhamed Sene, Senegalese NBA center (Seattle SuperSonics-Oklahoma City Thunder, New York Knicks), in Thies, Senegal.
History Diaries 