The Soviet Union’s latest proposal on strategic arms has merit and is being seriously considered by the United States, Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said today. Earlier this week Administration officials said the Soviet proposal marked a significant shift but still posed some problems. Under the proposal the Russians would reduce strategic weapons if the United States restricted research on its program to develop a space-based defense against missiles and agreed to abide by the 1972 treaty limiting antiballistic missile systems for at least 15 more years. Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, said Monday that the Soviet Union would be prepared to limit strategic nuclear forces on each side to 8,000 warheads or bombs and to 1,600 delivery systems, such as missiles, in exchange for an agreement to continue the ABM treaty. In answer to a question, Mr. Speakes said of the Soviet plan, “It has merit. We are treating it seriously.” He said American officials would complete a review and “sit down and discuss their proposal vis-a-vis our most recent proposal and hopefully we will begin to see some things fall into place.”
Four Senators today introduced a nonbinding resolution urging continued observance of the terms of the second strategic arms control pact. The resolution was sponsored by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont; Senator John H. Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island; Senator Dale Bumpers, Democrat of Arkansas, and Senator John R. Heinz, Republican of Pennsylvania. The non-binding resolution was introduced in the Republican-controlled chamber a day before the Democratic-run House is scheduled to consider a similar resolution. The House measure was sent to the floor last week by the Foreign Affairs Committee. Democratic leaders said then that they expect it to pass the full House.
The trial of 15 men charged in the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship began here today amid signs that the proceedings will be marked by political as well as legal disputes. The nature of Palestinian terrorism and the arrangements that ended the hijacking in October could prove to be the most controversial aspects of the case, lawyers said at the opening session. The defendants face various charges stemming from the planning of the terrorist action, its execution and the killing aboard the ship of Leon Klinghoffer, a handicapped New Yorker. Three of the hijackers sat in black metal cages surrounded by paramilitary policemen. They were arrested in Sicily on Oct. 10 after United States Navy fighter planes intercepted the airliner carrying them away from Egypt, where they had agreed to release the ship after holding it for two days. A fourth hijacker is consider a minor under Italian law and is not part of this trial.
A bomb planted in a hijacked van exploded outside a police station near Belfast, Northern Ireland, injuring six people. Police had received a warning and had left the station, but the bomb exploded before residents could be evacuated. Police said they suspected the predominantly Catholic Irish Republican Army. In a separate attack, officers were fired on as they investigated a vehicle theft in a Protestant area of Belfast.
Austrian Jewish spokesmen accused Kurt Waldheim’s supporters today of exploiting anti-Semitism in the presidential campaign and said they would not let the matter rest. “Now after the election, to be silent today would be a negation not only of self-respect, but such silence would be damaging to all,” said Ivan Hacker, chairman of the Austrian Jewish Community. “We categorically reject the various vulgarities and insulting reactions, no matter from where or whom they may come.” The World Jewish Congress has accused Mr. Waldheim, a former United Nations Secretary General, of concealing his service with the German Army in World War II in the Balkans where war crimes were committed.
American officials want to indict an Israeli Air Force officer who has been linked to an Israeli spy ring, according to a knowledgeable Reagan Administration official. The official indicated that the decision to seek criminal charges against Colonel Aviem Sella would be revoked only under extraordinary circumstances.
A senior Israeli official expressed great disappointment tonight at the prospect that the United States might indict Col. Aviem Sella of the Israeli Air Force. The official said Israel made it known to the State and Justice Departments several days ago that it was ready to allow investigators to question Colonel Sella in exchange for his immunity from prosecution, Government sources said today. Israeli officials said they thought that the State Department was sympathetic to the idea of resolving the case without going through the courts but that there had been resistance from the Justice Department.
Three former Israeli secret service agents who accused their chief of covering up the killings of two Palestinian bus hijackers said they Ihave received death threats, the Tel Aviv newspaper Davar reported. The three ex-agents of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, left their jobs after accusing Shin Bet chief Avraham Shalom of covering up facts relating to the 1984 incident, in which two of the captured terrorists were beaten to death by Israeli interrogators.
Palestinians should have a homeland, John Cardinal O’Connor, the Archbishop of New York, said. By keeping hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in refugee camps, he said, “we are creating a monster.” In an interview in Rome after a three-day visit to Lebanon, Cardinal O’Connor emphasized that he was not attacking Israel.
Muslim kidnappers released two Lebanese Christian hostages in West Beirut and said they will free a third as a good-will gesture in an effort to learn the fate of more than 2,000 Muslim hostages allegedly kidnapped by Christian militiamen in the civil war that started in 1975. The Muslims, believed to be Shia extremists, have claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of 10 Christians along Beirut’s dividing Green Line in the last month.
The American Ambassador to the Vatican, William A. Wilson, said today that he had visited Libya in November. He denied reports from Administration officials that he was in Libya early this year after the terrorist attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports. Mr. Wilson. a friend of President Reagan who announced his resignation last month after his dealings with Libya were disclosed, said through a spokesman that the November visit had been his “one and only one trip” to Libya. He said that he then broke off contacts with Libya at the request of the State Department.
Three simultaneous explosions blamed on saboteurs rocked the Al Ahmadi oil complex in southern Kuwait, setting ablaze an oil well and two pipeline networks and threatening 9 million barrels of crude oil. One oil worker was reported slightly injured. An official statement said “these criminal acts” will not alter Kuwait’s oil policies, and a Kuwaiti-based Arab diplomat said “pro-Iranian elements” are suspected. Kuwait, which supports Iraq in its war against Iran, also differs with the Iranians on oil policy. Iran wants to cut oil production to boost prices.
President Reagan certified Saudi Arabia today as eligible to receive Awacs surveillance planes, saying the Saudis had made “substantial” efforts toward advancing the Arab-Israeli peace process. In a letter to Congress, Mr. Reagan said that Saudi Arabia had also engaged in several moves intended to encourage peace in the region and that the American planes would directly contribute to that objective. Mr. Reagan based his view of the Saudis’ role in advancing Arab peace with Israel on the 1982 plan developed by King Fahd that became the basis of a communique issued by Arabs nations meeting that year in Fez, Morocco. The President said the declaration, which Israel called unacceptable, “significantly and irreversibly” modified the Arab position on Israel.
President Reagan told Congressional intelligence committees around the New Year that the United States’ covert program of military aid to the Afghan rebels was aimed at removing Soviet forces from Afghanistan “by all means available,” according to Administration officials. Officials said in interviews today that it was recognized at the time that the “all means available” language was ambiguous. But they said such presentations to the committees were normally in broad strokes. This particular presentation, made in late 1985 or early 1986, was in the form of either a written memorandum or an oral briefing, and the ambiguous language served two purposes, officials said. It provided justification for supplying more and better arms to the rebels, and it signaled to those in Congress who wanted to do more that Mr. Reagan was on their side.
Benazir Bhutto vowed to give 10 million acres of government land to peasants if she is able to drive Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq from power. Bhutto, daughter of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, predicted that growing popular opposition will force Zia to relinquish power and call elections as she demands. “I’m confident that the people will pressure the government to hold elections because the internal situation of the country and the social forces are developing so that change is imminent,” she said at a news conference.
The Cabinet in Sri Lanka approved a plan today that is intended to resolve the island’s ethnic conflict, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives in the last three years. The government’s Information Department said in a statement that the plan included the creation of elected provincial councils to which power would be passed. Tamil guerrillas have been battling government troops in a campaign for autonomy for Tamil areas in the north and east of the island.
Japan’s political parties launched official campaigns for next month’s parliamentary election, with Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone vowing not to raise taxes and opposition leaders attacking his policies. In an appearance at a Tokyo subway station, Nakasone vowed not to levy a new round of indirect taxes or tinker with a cherished tax exemption for small savings depositors. In Nakasone’s home region in central Japan, Masashi Ishibashi, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, charged that Nakasone has built up the military by cutting welfare and education.
President Reagan participates in a meeting with leaders of the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO). President Reagan, faced with a warning from Nicaraguan rebels that they desperately need military equipment, renewed his pledge today to provide United States assistance. Mr. Reagan, who must still persuade the House to approve his plan to send $100 million to the rebels, $70 million of it military aid, met with three leaders of the United Nicaraguan Opposition, the United States-supported umbrella group overseeing forces fighting to oust the Managua Government. The rebel leaders Alfonso Robelo, Arturo Cruz and Adolfo Calero, seeking to improve prospects for House passage of the aid program, said they had established their own “blue-ribbon commission” to look into how United States aid money is being spent.
President Reagan participates in a meeting with several Administration officials to discuss the U.S. Central American policy.
Left-wing rebel inmates took over parts of three prisons in metropolitan Lima, Peru today in a coordinated mutiny, wounding nine police officers and guards and taking nine hostages, the authorities said. Leftist rebels also planted bombs and killed several police officers in the streets, Government reports said.
Black supermarket workers struck to protest the detention of union leaders under South Africa’s state of emergency. Black fruit-pickers reportedly stopped work in areas of the Western Cape, and 1,200 blacks struck a fish cannery in Cape Town. Three more blacks were reported killed in violence around the country between dawn Tuesday and dawn today, the authorities announced. The deaths today brought to 45 the number of blacks killed since the nationwide emergency went into effect. Two of the deaths today were caused when the police shot black men who, according to officials, were trying to firebomb a bus and a police vehicle. Despite what appeared to be spreading unrest in workplaces around the country and the continuing death toll, a government spokesman said there had been a resurgence of confidence in South Africa among foreign-owned businesses. “I think what South Africans are looking for at this period in our history and what many people overseas are looking for, particularly investors, is stability, and this is what we wish to restore in the country,” said David Steward, a spokesman for the Bureau for Information, the newly established propaganda arm of the government. Severe restrictions on the right of news organizations to gather information continued today, and many South African newspapers appeared with blank spaces in their news columns and picture spots.
3,000 people have been detained in the first week of South Africa’s state of emergency, officials of the World Council of Churches said. South African press curbs forbid journalists in South Africa from reporting the names of the detained. But the World Council and Amnesty International are compiling lists of detainees from sources there. “It appears that the arrests have been continuing steadily,” David Laulicht, a spokesman for Amnesty, said in a telephone interview from London. During the state of emergency, the police have the right to hold prisoners incommunicado and are given immunity for their acts. “To Amnesty, this seems to be a license to torture,” Mr. Laulicht said. During a state of emergency last year, many detainees complained of torture. Risking arrest under the state of emergency, Bishop Desmond M. Tutu urged the West yesterday to impose sanctions against his Government. In an interview with ABC News, he called President Reagan an “accomplice after the fact” in Pretoria’s racist policies.
Four of five Americans caught in the roundups had been released by late yesterday, State Department officials said. The officials said they did not know if any of the Americans were maltreated in jail. The four who have been released are: Rodney Williams, 51 years old, of Hawaii; Brad Daugherty, 18, of San Diego; Ronald Minor, 31, of Anaheim, California, and the Rev. Brian Burchfield, who lives in South Africa. The name of the fifth American, who is still in jail, could not be made public, State Department officials said, because of the American Privacy Act. In Washington yesterday, Bernard Kalb, the State Department spokesman, said: “The United States deplores the strict regulation on press activities in South Africa. The U.S. regards freedom of the press as an essential feature of democracy. And it’s the U.S. hope that the South African Government will soon realize that it is not the press reporting of the problems in South Africa, but the problems themselves that South Africa must deal with.”
The U.S. House of Representatives, in a surprise development, approved and sent to the Senate today a measure imposing a trade embargo and requiring complete divestment by American companies and citizens of their holdings in South Africa. The measure, approved by voice vote, would require the severing of all economic ties with South Africa and would oblige the approximately 280 American companies doing business there to halt operations within 180 days. It would impose a full embargo on trade, allowing only the import of certain materials if the President certified that they were of strategic importance. The vote is certain to increase political pressure not only on the Pretoria Government but also on the Reagan Administration, which has vigorously opposed further economic penalties against South Africa. Possibility of Confrontation The measure is unusual in that sanctions against foreign governments are usually initiated by the President, as was the case when he ordered oil companies to halt operations in Libya, using his emergency powers. If the bill became law the President would be charged with enforcing the sanctions, but as Mr. Reagan opposes such moves he could decline to carry out the measure, leading to a possible confrontation with Congress.
William H. Rehnquist has spent his 14 years on the Supreme Court at the cutting edge of conservative legal doctrine. The Court has not always followed him, but it has always had to respond to his strongly held views and distinctive voice. On Tuesday, President Reagan chose him for Chief Justice. As such, he would still have only one vote; a Chief Justice is first among equals only if an innate ability to lead and persuade makes him a center of gravity in an institution that has been described as nine separate law firms. Even with the addition of Antonin Scalia, who is likely to be the new Chief Justice’s strong ideological ally, the Court’s dominant bloc will continue to be the moderate center that has prevented any dramatic doctrinal change over the 17 years of Warren E. Burger’s tenure. But in perhaps subtle ways, Justice Rehnquist’s new position is almost certain to enhance his influence in an institution where he already casts a large shadow.
The Chief Justice has the power to assign opinions in cases in which he is in the majority. This is an important power because the Justice who circulates the initial draft of an opinion, particularly in a sensitive case on which the Court is closely divided, is the one who frames the issue and defines the terms of the debate. Chief Justice Burger often called on Justice Rehnquist to play this role, and he in turn can be expected to make strategic use of the opinion-assigning power. In the past, Justice Rehnquist has been content to be a dissenter, or at least to write a separate opinion if the majority opinion did not precisely embody his views. But there are recent signs that he may have a growing interest in helping the Court to speak with one voice. For example, he joined the plurality opinion in a racial discrimination case last month although that opinion’s guarded endorsement of affirmative action was at variance with his own firmly stated opposition to that approach in other decisions.
Judge Antonin Scalia has criticized several major Supreme Court precedents and expressed views contrary to present law on a wide range of contentious issues. He has said or strongly suggested that the Supreme Court was wrong to recognize a constitutional right to abortion, to approve “racial affirmative action,” to order busing as a desegregation remedy and to strike down all existing death penalty laws.
Sandra Day O’Connor was a key contender to become Chief Justice of the United States, but was rejected in favor of William H. Rehnquist on the ground that she was relatively new to the Supreme Court, according to Administration officials.
President Reagan today signed a comprehensive package of rules, guidelines and definitions that will set the nation’s policy for regulating the nation’s fast-developing biotechnology industry for the rest of the decade and possibly through the 1990’s. The rules, which determine how five Federal agencies will assess risks and benefits for products produced by artificial manipulation of their genetic structures, have been under development for more than two years and take effect immediately. The President signed the rules this morning without ceremony and without issuing a statement, according to Administration officials. Top Federal scientists said the regulatory package provides a system for protecting public health and the environment from potential hazards posed by products made by artificially manipulating the genetic structures of plants, animals, and microorganisms. At the same time, they said, the rules will provide much firmer guidance to more than 200 biotechnology companies and a host of pharmaceutical, chemical, and farm product manufacturers that are seeking to license a new generation of vaccines, drugs, pesticides, plants and other products using such technology.
The Senate, nearing a final vote on legislation that would restructure the Federal income tax system, rejected a proposal yesterday that would increase taxes on the wealthy and give larger tax reductions to middle-income Americans. The proposal, offered by Senator George J. Mitchell, a Maine Democrat, would have placed the top tax rate at 35 percent instead of the 27 percent in the Senate bill, and it would have benefited the 95 percent of taxpayers with incomes under $75,000 a year. Its rejection, by a vote of 71 to 29, appeared to clear away the last important threat to main elements of the Senate tax bill. Senate leaders worked last night to reach an agreement to take a final vote on the bill this week. Most senators predicted approval would be unanimous or close to it. But as last night wore on, no agreement was reached and the list of mostly minor amendments that Senators said they intended to offer had grown to more than 70. Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader, said Senators should be prepared to work through Saturday in an effort to finish the bill. The Senate finally adjourned early Thursday at 1 AM. Republicans voted solidly against the Mitchell proposal; Democrats were evenly split.
The company that built the faulty booster rockets on the space shuttle Challenger is exploring new designs for the rocket joints that will have backups for all critical components and may not require O ring seals, a company official testified today. Allan J. McDonald, an engineering executive who heads the rocket redesign group for Morton Thiokol Inc., told the House Science and Technology Committee that his group was studying “various concepts” to improve the rocket joints and seals that have officially been blamed for causing the loss of the Challenger and its crew of seven. He said the redesigned joints will have to have backup parts available to perform all critical functions for the duration of the rocket’s flight. Metal sealing systems are among those being studied, as well as variations of O-rings made of different materials or with metal cores or springs. He said the design effort is focusing on providing redundant sealing capability and reducing flex in joints.
Scientists say they have developed a process that they hope can save any voice recordings that might have been made by astronauts in the final seconds of the flight of the space shuttle Challenger, according to space agency officials. The tapes, which were thought to be damaged beyond repair after nearly six weeks’ exposure to salt water, are now undergoing a special treatment to reverse the damage. If the process is successful, it could reveal any conversations among the astronauts just before the disaster that destroyed the Challenger and killed its seven-member crew shortly after its launching at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 28. Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration cautioned in interviews that there were no indications that any such conversations took place in the Challenger’s 74-second flight. They added, however, that the new technique would soon let them know for sure.
In a surprise move, defense attorneys in the espionage and tax fraud trial of Jerry A. Whitworth said today that they expected to complete the presenation of their case Thursday, only four days after it began, without calling Mr. Whitworth. Prosecutors have presented nearly 140 witnesses over 11 and a half weeks in their attempt to prove that Mr. Whitworth, a former Navy radioman, stole secret cryptographic data and passed it to a Soviet spy ring in exchange for $332,000. James Larson, a defense attorney, said that Mr. Whitworth would not testify in his defense. Mr. Larson said that Mr. Whitworth “really has no defense to the income tax evasion charges and for him to have to admit them on the stand would affect his credibility on the other charges.” Before the trial began March 24, defense attorneys unsuccessfully sought to have the eight counts of espionage in the indictment tried in a separate proceeding from the five counts of tax fraud. At that time they indicated that Mr. Whitworth was inclined to take the stand to testify regarding the espionage charges, but probably would not do so regarding the tax charges.
Seven House members and the leaders of three national women’s groups called for a boycott of Trans World Airlines, contending the airline’s treatment of its flight attendants threatens working women and the labor movement. “This is more than a labor dispute. It involves the future of economic equity for women,” Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-California) said at a Washington press conference on behalf of the 4,600 flight attendants who lost their jobs after a bitter strike. “Don’t fly the unfriendly skies of TWA,” said Boxer.
A Senate committee today rejected the nomination of a Texas lawyer for a seat on the panel that oversees workplace safety after he was accused of trying to undermine enforcement of employee safety laws. The Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee killed the nomination of the lawyer, Robert E. Rader Jr., on two 8-to-8 votes, refusing either to approve the nomination or to send it to the Senate floor without a recommendation. President Reagan had nominated Mr. Rader for a permanent seat on the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Since August Mr. Rader had been an interim member of the three-member panel. It rules on corporations’ appeals of charges by the agency that they violated job safety rules.
A House-Senate conference committee agreed to transfer the title of Mitch Snyder’s homeless shelter from the federal government to the city and award $1.5 million in renovation money. Snyder, the prominent social activist who staged several hunger strikes to press for renovation money, said the extra funds were needed to repair the rat-infested shelter, located just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. “We are grateful to Congress for the extra money,” said Snyder. “It means we’ll have to raise less money ourselves. Raising money in Washington is not an easy thing to do.”
In the face of allegations that he has improperly used a tax-exempt think tank he founded five years ago to advance his presidential prospects, Rep. Jack Kemp (R-New York) this week removed himself as chairman of the organization. His entire board has also resigned. Kemp’s spokesman, John Buckley, said the changes at the Fund for an American Renaissance do not constitute an admission of impropriety.
George Hansen, a former Republican congressman from Idaho, was ordered to report to a federal prison Friday to begin serving a five-to-15 month sentence for filing false financial disclosure statements to Congress. U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green, reversing a decision she made Monday, said the 55-year-old Hansen would report to the Petersburg (Virginia) Camp, a minimum security prison, by 3 PM Friday to begin serving the sentence. Two days ago, Green stayed her order for Hansen to report to the prison farm by Thursday.
A plane and a helicopter (De Havilland Twin Otter & Bell 206) collided over the Grand Canyon and crashed into a mile-deep gorge in flames, killing all 25 people aboard the two aircraft. The accident recalled a 1956 collision of two airliners over the Grand Canyon that killed 128 people. The collision occurred in an area called Scorpion Creek near Crystal Rapids, about 15 miles from the National Park Service Visitor Center at the south rim of the canyon. The collision came just at the start of the peak tourist season at the Grand Canyon, during a year in which park officials are expecting extremely heavy park use because of public uncertainty over travel overseas. The crash focused attention on an ongoing debate on restricting flights over the national park because of concerns over both noise and safety. From 2,000 feet above the crash site all that was visible was the blackened remains of the plane’s fuselage. The white wings could be seen clearly against a plateau about half a mile from the river’s bank.
Police in Jacksonville, Florida, acting on a tip, captured two men once described as black-power advocates and wanted in the 1968 slayings of two Tennessee police officers, authorities said. Charles Lee Herron, who was on the FBI’s most wanted list longer than anyone else, surrendered peacefully at dawn as he walked into a police stakeout after the arrest the day before of his companion, prison escapee William Garrin Allen II. Allen, 40, escaped from a Tennessee prison after serving six years of a 99-year sentence in the slayings of the officers. Herron, 49, was never tried in the deaths.
A former marine who killed a convenience store manager in a robbery 12 years ago was put to death by the State of Texas early today, despite pleas for mercy from the victim’s father. The convict, 37-year-old Kenneth Brock, was killed with an injection of lethal drugs shortly after midnight in the state prison here. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Michael Sedita, 31, whom he used as a shield during a robbery of a Houston 7-Eleven store in May 1974.
Scientists studying the poisoning of a Seattle area woman found a second bottle of cyanide-tainted Extra-Strength Excedrin that belonged to a man who died two week ago, the authorities said. Officials will make toxicology tests today of tissue samples taken from Bruce Nickell, 52, who died June 5 of what were then believed to be natural causes.
New evidence that humans lived in the Americas thousands of years earlier than previously thought has been found in a rock shelter in northeast Brazil, French scientists reported yesterday. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal and other materials in the shelter, which is decorated with prehistoric wall paintings, indicates that humans lived there at least 32,000 years ago. Charcoal from hearths found in different layers of sediments led the scientists to conclude that the shelter was repeatedly occupied by different groups of tool-making people in subsequent times, down to as recently as 6,000 years ago. Most archeologists have believed that the first humans reached the Americas 11,500 to 20,000 years ago, presumably coming from Asia across a “land bridge” that existed in the Bering Straits between Siberia and Alaska. This was the time of the most recent ice age, when worldwide sea levels were lowered considerably because of the volume of water locked up on land in the vast glacial sheets.
Breast cancer continues to strike women with undiminished force and still baffles science, despite marked progress in prolonging lives. The death rate for breast cancer is not declining, but the five-year survival rate has been improving.
Babies with sickle cell anemia should be given daily penicillin pills to prevent blood infections that are the leading cause of death among young victims of the inherited disorder, a new study concludes. The blood infection, septicemia, is caused by the bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae.
A dangerous Asian mosquito has established itself in the United States for the first time, and health experts fear it will spread and become a major new carrier of serious diseases in this country and Latin America. The Asian tiger mosquito is an unusually efficient transmitter of many human diseases, including dengue fever and several varieties of encephalitis.
No more civil jury trials will start in the nation’s Federal court system until October, except in part of California, because money to pay juror costs has been exhausted for the current fiscal year.
Heike Friedrich swims female world record 200m freestyle (1:57.55).
Major League Baseball:
Franklin Stubbs homered and drove in three runs to pace Fernando Valenzuela and the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 5–2 victory over the Braves in Atlanta. Valenzuela, 10–4, also contributed two singles to Los Angeles’ 15-hit attack in becoming the National League’s second 10-game winner. Bob Knepper of the Houston Astros is the other.
The Tigers turned back the Orioles, 6–1. Larry Herndon blasted a two-run homer and the rookie Eric King pitched a five-hitter to lead Detroit over Baltimore. King, 3–0, walked two and struck out nine in his third major-league start. The victory was Detroit’s third in a row while Baltimore has lost eight of its last 10 games. Scott McGregor (5–7) was the loser.
Don Sutton pitched a three-hitter for his 300th career victory tonight as the California Angels beat the Rangers, 5–1. The 41-year-old right-hander, in his 21st major-league season, became the 19th pitcher in baseball history to win 300 games. Tom Seaver of the Chicago White Sox and Phil Niekro, who was with the Yankees at the time, did it last year. Sutton did not issue a walk and struck out three in handing the slumping Rangers their fifth consecutive loss and slicing their lead in the American League West to one-half game over the Angels. He retired 15 batters in a row at one stretch and the only hits he allowed were singles by Ruben Sierra in the second and eighth innings and Pete Incaviglia’s solo homer, his 12th, in the seventh. The Angels gave Sutton a 3–0 lead in the first inning. Jose Guzman (6–7) walked Gary Pettis, the Angels’ leadoff hitter, who eventually scored on a groundout. Rob Wilfong singled home a pair of runs later in the inning.
Ron Cey scored from third on a wild pitch by reliever Don Carman in the bottom of the 10th inning to lift Chicago to a 5–4 win over the Phillies. Jody Davis opened the 10th with a walk against reliever Steve Bedrosian. Pinch runner Dave Martinez stole second but was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Cey’s single to left. Cey took second on the play at the plate. Carman relieved Bedrosian and walked Leon Durham intentionally. Then Jerry Mumphrey also walked, loading the bases. With Thad Bosley batting for winning pitcher Lee Smith, Carman delivered the wild pitch that allowed Cey to score.
The Reds edged the Astros, 3–2. Eric Davis hit a two-run homer off the reliever Dave Smith with one out in the ninth inning to lead Cincinnati. Held to only three hits by Mike Scott over eight and one-third innings, the Reds began their comeback against the reliever Frank DiPino when Dave Parker singled. Smith (1–3) then replaced DiPino and was greeted by Davis’s sixth home run. Ron Robinson (5–0) won in relief.
Ken Schrom allowed three hits in seven innings and Brett Butler doubled, tripled and scored twice as Cleveland snapped the Mariners’ four-game winning streak, downing the Mariners, 5–1. Schrom, 6–2, struck out four and walked three before leaving the game because of a strained Achilles tendon.
Rookie Mike Felder drove in two runs with his first major-league home run and Ted Higuera scattered eight hits as the Brewers beat the Blue Jays, 3–1.
The Minnesota Twins tied the game with four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning on Kent Hrbek’s two-run homer and Mickey Hatcher’s two-run single and then beat Chicago, 10–9, on Steve Lombardozzi’s 10th-inning triple. Kirby Puckett opened the 10th with a single off Gene Nelson, 4–3, the fifth Chicago pitcher. Lombardozzi followed with a hard grounder down the third-base line that rolled into the left-field corner as Puckett steamed home.
The night began with boyhood friends pitching in the same game for opposing teams. But it was not a memorable performance that Dwight Gooden gave tonight, not the kind of game that he would want to hash over years from now with Floyd Youmans. Gooden and Youmans, chums since their youth in Florida, faced each other for the first time as major league pitchers. Gooden, though, was hardly at his best, losing to Youmans and the Montreal Expos, 7–4, at Olympic Stadium.
Earlier in the day, George Steinbrenner said, “Maybe I made a mistake.” About six hours later, Don Baylor presented the Yankees’ owner with Exhibit A in the evidence he has been compiling all season to show that, indeed, Steinbrenner and his brain trust made a mistake, a bad mistake, perhaps a fatal mistake. Batting with the bases loaded in the ninth inning of a 2–2 game last night, Baylor swatted a double to left-center that scored all three Boston runners and catapulted the Red Sox to a 5-2 victory over the Yankees. The decision gave the Red Sox a sweep of the three-game series at Yankee Stadium and shot them six and a half games ahead of the Yankees for their biggest lead since they supplanted the Yankees in first place in the American League East May 15. Baylor won the game for Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd, the demonstrative pitcher, who scattered eight hits in gaining his ninth victory against four defeats. Ken Griffey, back after a mysterious one-game absence, had two of the hits, a double that set up the run that tied the game, 1-1, in the second inning and a home run that tied the game, 2-2, in the sixth.
Curt Young pitched himself in and out of trouble frequently Wednesday to win a duel from 1985 Cy Young Award winner Bret Saberhagen. Both pitchers finished with four-hitters, but the only hit that mattered was Dave Kingman’s 15th homer of the season. It gave Young and the Oakland A’s a 1–0 victory over the Kansas City Royals. “I think Saberhagen made just a little mistake on that pitch,” A’s manager Jackie Moore said. “He hit a fastball up and inside. I thought it was a pretty good pitch, myself,” Kansas City manager Dick Howser said. Saberhagen, 20–6 last season when he won the Cy Young Award, is 4–7 this year and has yet to win two straight games. Kingman drilled a 2–2 pitch over the left field fence with one out in the second inning for the 422nd home run of his career. The A’s designated hitter brought a .197 batting average and 2-for-19 slump into the game.
The Pirates and Cardinals split a twinbill. Bill Almon’s short sacrifice fly to right in the 12th inning scored Joe Orsulak with the winning run as Pittsburgh snapped a six-game losing streak with a 2–1 victory. Earlier, the Cardinals completed a 4–2 victory over the Pirates that was improperly halted in the sixth inning Monday night by the umpires on account of rain.
Chris Brown, Bob Melvin, and Jose Uribe hit home runs to carry San Francisco past San Diego. The Giants win 6–3. The Giants battered Mark Thurmond, 3–6, for five hits and three runs in 113 innings. Thurmond is now 1–6 lifetime against San Francisco. Padre reliever Tim Stoddard slugs a solo homer in the 3rd off the Giants Mike LaCoss, and then is lifted an inning later. For Stoddard, his first homer comes in his last major league at bat. He’ll appear in another 128 games but never swing a bat.
Los Angeles Dodgers 5, Atlanta Braves 2
Detroit Tigers 6, Baltimore Orioles 1
Texas Rangers 1, California Angels 5
Philadelphia Phillies 4, Chicago Cubs 5
Houston Astros 2, Cincinnati Reds 3
Seattle Mariners 1, Cleveland Indians 5
Toronto Blue Jays 1, Milwaukee Brewers 3
Chicago White Sox 9, Minnesota Twins 10
New York Mets 4, Montreal Expos 7
Boston Red Sox 5, New York Yankees 2
Kansas City Royals 0, Oakland Athletics 1
St. Louis Cardinals 1, Pittsburgh Pirates 2
San Francisco Giants 6, San Diego Padres 3
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1868.94 (+3.16)
Born:
Richard Madden, Scottish actor (Games of Thrones, Cinderella), in Elderslie, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Steve Cishek, MLB pitcher (Florida-Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals, Seattle Mariners, Tampa Bay Rays, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Angels, Washington Nationals), in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
Caleb Joseph, MLB catcher (Baltimore Orioles, Arizona Diamondbacks, Toronto Blue Jays), in Nashville, Tennessee.
Brandon Lang, NFL linebacker (San Diego Chargers), in Tucker, Georgia.
Richard Gasquet, French tennis player, in Béziers, France.
Died:
Frances Scott Fitzgerald, 64, Daughter of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre.
History Diaries 