The Irish have voted overwhelmingly to keep the nation’s ban on divorce, delivering a severe setback to the Government of Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald, according to returns announced today. Mr. FitzGerald personally led the fight to end the Irish Republic’s standing as the only Western European nation without legal divorce. But the returns from the balloting Thursday showed that the voters rebuffed the proposal by a margin wider than 3 to 2. The result could prove threatening to both the four-year-old minority coalition Government and the progress of the delicate, seven-month-old British-Irish agreement allowing Dublin a consultative role in the affairs of Northern Ireland. Mr. FitzGerald presented the proposed constitutional amendment as an act of compassion toward the 70,000 cases of marital breakdown that critics of the divorce ban say are caught in a legal limbo in the republic.
Italy’s Prime Minister stepped down, bringing an end to the country’s longest-lasting postwar government. Prime Minister Bettino Craxi resigned tonight, bringing an end to Italy’s longest-lasting postwar Government. Mr. Craxi, who has held office since Aug. 4, 1983, presented his resignation and that of Italy’s 44th postwar Cabinet to President Francesco Cossiga at the baroque Quirinal Palace, built for Popes but now occupied by Italian heads of state. Mr. Cossiga asked Mr. Craxi to stay on as a caretaker Prime Minister and the began consultations with party leaders aimed at resolving what Mr. Craxi called a “delicate, difficult and even unpredictable” political situation. The 52-year-old Socialist Prime Minister, sporting the red tie that has become his trademark, issued an upbeat and combative statement and later suggested to reporters asking for further comments that they “go take a bath.”
The judge in the Achille Lauro hijacking trial announced today that he was suspending proceedings until Tuesday to consider whether to drop a juror whom the chief prosecutor asked to leave the panel. The juror, Silvio Ferrari, sent a letter to Judge Lino Monteverde today asking to be excused. Mr. Ferrari told reporters he had received a letter Thursday from the chief prosecutor, Gennaro De Feo, “inviting” him to leave the panel. Mr. Ferrari, a Communist member of the Genoa provincial legislature, said he had done nothing to compromise his position as a juror.
Yelena G. Bonner told her son yesterday that her health took a turn for the worse after her return to the Soviet Union earlier this month and she became “extremely depressed,” although she has experienced some improvement in “the last couple of days.” Her son, Alexei I. Semyonov of Newton, Mass., said Miss Bonner, a human-rights activist, has not been allowed to go from Gorky, where she is in internal exile, to Moscow to claim baggage.
Arab and Western diplomats said this week that an effort by Jordan’s King Hussein to bring about an easing of tensions between Syria and Iraq had fallen apart. The sources said the highly publicized Hussein effort appeared to have foundered in large part because of deep personal animosity between Presidents Hafez al-Assad of Syria and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. But Mr. Assad has used the situation to get needed oil and financial benefits for his hard-pressed Government, the diplomats said. King Hussein said this month that the Foreign Ministers of Syria and Iraq would meet June 13 to discuss the reconciliation. The meeting did not occur. Arab analysts and other Middle East experts had given the Hussein initiative little credence, given the bitterness between the Syrian and Iraqi leaders, who head rival branches of the Baath Socialist Party. But reports of the effort stirred widespread speculation on shifting alliances in the region. King Hussein had sought the reconciliation to help ease pressure on Iraq in its six-year-old war with Iran and to foster Arab unity by making a long-delayed Arab summit meeting possible. Syria supports Iran in the war, in one of the major divisions in the region. Coming after the collapse of the King’s joint Middle East initiative with the Palestine Liberation Organization, the failure represents another diplomatic setback.
Suspension of the ANZUS treaty between the United States and New Zealand was announced by the State Department after Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Prime Minister David Lange failed to mend their rift over nuclear policy. Mr. Shultz said the move was taken because Washington regarded New Zealand’s insistence on banning visits by nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered ships as a repudiation of its obligations under the 35-year-old treaty, in which the United States promised to defend New Zealand. The U.S. informs New Zealand it will not defend it against attack. But the Prime Minister, David Lange, minimized the seriousness of the American decision, insisting that it was meaningless since New Zealand faced no threat from anyone, and because the wording of the treaty made it clear that even in the case of a genuine threat to New Zealand, there was no automatic guarantee that the United States would help. He added that if New Zealand was faced with a concerted Soviet invasion, he doubted that no one would come to its aid. The suspension of the alliance was disclosed after Mr. Shultz and Mr. Lange, in their first meeting in two years, failed to make any progress in avoiding a rupture in relations that will become official in August. “We part company as friends, but we part company, as far as the alliance is concerned,” Mr. Shultz said.
The International Court of Justice ruled today that the Reagan Administration had broken international law and violated Nicaraguan sovereignty by aiding the anti-Government rebels. The Court, the judicial arm of the United Nations, ordered Washington to halt the “arming and training” of the insurgents and to pay Nicaragua for damages caused by military attacks, some of which it said had been carried out by the United States itself. The judgment, which was widely expected, came after 26 months of litigation on Nicaragua’s complaint.
The State Department rejected the World Court’s finding that United States policy toward Nicaragua violated international law and denounced the court as an inappropriate body to judge complex international military issues. A department spokesman said the court’s full opinion had not been received and therefore the American reaction would be only a preliminary one. He said a fuller response would come after the opinion had been studied. Mr. Redman also assailed the Nicaraguan Government for closing down La Prensa, that country’s only opposition newspaper. The closing order, which was issued Thursday and had been anticipated by a senior Administration official, was issued in reaction to the vote on Wednesday by the House of Representatives in favor of President Reagan’s $100 million aid package for the contras, as the Nicaraguan rebels are often called. The Nicaraguan Government said it had shut La Prensa because the newspaper had sought “to justify United States aggression.” In January 1985 the Administration said it would defy the Court and ignore further proceedings in the case because of its view that the World Court, as it is commonly called, has no jurisdiction to decide cases involving ongoing armed conflicts. The Court rejected this position last November.
President Alan Garcia said today that the Peruvian police dragged more than 100 inmates accused of being guerrillas from a prison cell block, threw them on the ground and shot them in the head in a mass execution last week. “This is a horrific crime that is unprecedented,” Mr. Garcia said as he showed reporters the spot in the Lurigancho prison where he said the slayings occurred after the security forces crushed a prison mutiny. “This is a crime that does enormous damage to the country,” he said. The military had reported that 124 inmates accused of being members of Shining Path, a leftist guerrilla group, died in the fighting that ended the mutiny at Lurigancho. It was one of three prison mutinies crushed by security forces on June 18 and 19. But Mr. Garcia said that at most 20 of the inmates died in the fighting to regain control of the prison block, with the rest being slain afterward. He said the policemen responsible for the killings would be transferred to a maximum-security prison to await charges. Justice Minister Luis Gonzalez Posada said 20 officers of the paramilitary Republican Guard and 80 rank-and-file members had been detained.
Ibrahim Babangida’s regime in Nigeria launches the ‘Structural Adjustment Program” to restructure the Nigerian economy via deregulation and privatization with the support of the IMF and the World Bank.
The South African Government announced today that curfews would be imposed in 11 more magisterial districts in the Orange Free State, bringing to at least 600,000 the number of South African blacks living under such formal restrictions. Shortly after issuing an emergency decree on June 12, the authorities ordered curfews in black townships in 13 magisterial disricts in the restive Eastern Cape, including the city of Port Elizabeth, whose segregated black townships are home to hundreds of thousands of people. Then, with little publicity, the authorities ordered major curfew restrictions on the movement of blacks in the so-called tribal homeland of KwaNdebele, north of Pretoria. The area has been riven by fighting between rival black groups over an official plan to declare the homeland nominally independent of Pretoria in December.
South African Journalist and founder of the ‘New Nation’ newspaper, Zwelakhe Sisulu is abducted; he was released 721 days later on 2 December 1988. The editor of an influential South African journal was forcibly abducted from his home near Johannesburg in the early morning hours, according to church sources in London. It was later learned that the editor, Zwelakhi Sisulu, was being held in John Vorster Square, the main police station in Johannesburg. Mr. Sisulu is editor of The New Nation, a biweekly black publication sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church. Four armed men, two of them hooded and two known to be white, broke through security gates and forced their way into the Sisulu home in Soweto, the sources said. Mr. Sisulu, 36 years old, is the son of Walter Sisulu, past secretary general of the outlawed African National Congress who is serving a life sentence for subversive activity. He is a close friend and cellmate of Nelson Mandela, the black nationalist leader.
European leaders agreed today on new political tactics to try to end South Africa’s system of racial segregation. But they remained deeply divided on imposing economic sanctions. At the end of a two-day meeting here, the heads of government from the 12 European Community countries said they were sending the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, to South Africa next month. Sir Geoffrey’s mission will be to try to persuade the Government there to open talks on the country’s political future with the black majority.
The Administration’s budget director said today that President Reagan is likely to employ an unusual mechanism in Congress’s new 1987 budget that would allow him to request increased spending for the Pentagon. Under the new mechanism, Mr. Reagan may seek the higher spending by proposing matching spending cuts or revenue increases. His budget director, James C. Miller 3d, said Mr. Reagan would not propose to raise taxes but would instead offer some combination of spending cuts, user fees and sales of Federal assets. Some Congressional leaders said, however, that Congress would not go along with the request unless some tax increases were included. The White House said today that Mr. Reagan found the budget resolution “generally acceptable” despite its deep cut in the President’s proposal for the military budget. The budget resolution, which sets binding spending and revenue targets for Congressional committees to follow, takes effect immediately, without being presented to the President for his consideration.
President Reagan enjoys a horseback ride.
The Army plans to destroy obsolete chemical weapons where they are stored at eight sites around the nation to avoid the risks of moving the weapons to central destruction locations, Government officials announced. The preliminary decision, which is expected to meet stiff opposition in communities near at least one Army depot, will be announced July 1 when the Pentagon releases its draft environmental impact statement on the plan, which will be subjected to three months of public hearings.
Stephen M. Bingham, a Yale-educated lawyer who spent 13 years as a fugitive, was found not guilty today of murder and conspiracy charges stemming from a 1971 shootout at San Quentin prison that left six people dead. Mr. Bingham, the 44-year-old scion of a prominent New England family, had been charged with smuggling a pistol to George Jackson, a member of the Black Panther Party who had written a best-selling book about his prison experiences. Mr. Jackson died in the shootout, which occurred shortly after Mr. Bingham visited him at the prison. Under California law, prosecutors said, providing the gun to Mr Jackson would have made Mr. Bingham equally liable for the deaths. Mr. Bingham and many of his supporters who had attended the 2 ½-month trial before Judge E. Warren McGuire in Marin County Superior Court in San Rafael burst into tears upon hearing the verdict.
The Federal Medicare system is soon to begin paying for a limited number of heart transplants, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Otis R. Bowen, said today. Dr. Bowen estimated that about 65 heart transplants might be covered in the first year at a cost of about $5 million to Medicare, the Government program of health care for elderly and disabled people. His department projects that in five years there will be 143 transplants a year under Medicare at a cost of $25 million. Department officials said that as many as to transplant 10 centers were expected to qualify for Medicare-paid heart transplants by virtue of their experience and their success rates in past operations.
Management and customers welcomed members of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company’s largest union back to work yesterday after a 26-day strike, greeting some with balloons, posters and refreshments. The 155,000 long-distance operators, installers, sales personnel and equipment plant workers won an 8 percent raise, spread over three years, and job security guarantees.
A Federal judge refuses to preside in a nationwide televised naturalization ceremony on July 3 because he says its dignity would be diminished by the introduction of television advertising. The judge, Gehard A. Gesell of the Federal District Court in Washington, canceled the naturalization of 106 prospective citizens that was to have been held at the Jefferson Memorial as part of the nationwide ceremony. He rescheduled the proceedings for the same people on the afternoon of July 3 in the United States Courthouse in Washington.
Former Postmaster General Paul N. Carlin said today that he had been forced to leave the position because he had intervened in a kickback scheme involving a member of the Postal Service’s Board of Governors. He made the assertion in a suit filed against the Board in Federal District Court here. In the suit, Mr. Carlin asked to be reappointed Postmaster General, a position he left in January after months of mounting criticism.
A Philadelphia Councilman charged with conspiring with an organized crime syndicate to extort $1 million from Rouse & Associates Inc., a developer in the city’s waterfront restoration, was arrested. Robert Rego, administrative assistant to the Councilman, Leland M. Beloff, was also arrested. A third defendant, Nicholas Caramandi, was charged with extortion and arrested.
The Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission today upheld the candidacy of Gregory S. Hyatt, the only candidate still running in the Republican gubernatorial primary this fall, whose nominating petitions had been assailed by both Republicans and Democrats. The commission’s ruling compounded the problems of the Republican leadership, whose previous candidate had dropped out of the race, because the dispute over the signatures has undercut much of Mr. Hyatt’s support within the party. The commission ruled that Mr. Hyatt had enough valid signatures on his nominating papers to keep his name on the primary ballot despite widespread charges of fraud. He submitted petitions with 11,839 names; the signatures of 10,000 registered voters are needed.
A Pennsylvania woman accused of killing three people and wounding seven others in a shooting rampage at a crowded shopping mall last October was found guilty today but mentally ill. Before the defendant, Sylvia Seegrist, begins serving a mandatory life sentence she will receive a hearing on whether she should first be committed to a mental institution. After deliberating for nine hours over two days, the Delaware County jury found Miss Seegrist, who has had a history of mental problems for more than a decade, guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder. Miss Seegrist, a 25-year-old resident of Crum Lynne, opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at the Springfield Mall last October 30.
Eight people were indicted today on charges of buying Democratic votes in 1982 and 1984 races in southern Indiana, including a Congressional election that was one of the closest in the nation’s history, the Justice Department announced. The indictments, however, will not affect the outcome of the 1984 Eighth Congressional District race, John Tinder, a United States Attorney, said at a news conference here.
Anti-terrorist specialists from the Army’s Delta Force will assist New York City police on the Fourth of July weekend, Reagan Admininistration officials announced. The officials said the Delta Force soldiers would be held on alert and would not be posted on streets.
Jim Henson’s fantasy film “Labyrinth” written by Terry Jones, and starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, is released in the United States.
American tennis player Anne White shocks Wimbledon by wearing a white, one-piece, lycra body suit in 1st round match against Pam Shriver; wears regular outfit after rain break.
Don Rogers, the Cleveland Browns free safety who was the American Football Conference defensive rookie of the year in 1984, died today of cardiac arrest, authorities said. The 23-year-old Rogers, who was to have been married Saturday, died at 4:31 PM, Pacific daylight time, after five hours of treatment failed to revive him, at Mercy San Juan Hospital in Carmichael, said a hospital spokesman, Connie Huff. Loren Willeford, senior investigator for Sacramento County Coroner’s office, said Rogers collapsed Friday morning at his family’s Sacramento home. Family members called an ambulance, he said, and Rogers, dressed in a sweatsuit, was taken to Community Hospital in Sacramento at about 11:15 AM. “He was in a coma; it was a life-threatening situation,” said an unidentified dispatcher.
Major League Baseball:
The Atlanta Braves edged the San Diego Padres, 5–4. Ozzie Virgil drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the eighth inning for Atlanta. The reliever Tim Stoddard (1–3) walked Dale Murphy and Bob Horner to start the eighth and Craig Lefferts took over. Ken Oberkfell sacrificed and Rafael Ramirez was intentionally walked to load the bases. Virgil followed with a fly ball to medium center and Murphy scored easily ahead of Marvelle Wynne’s throw, which was slightly off-line.
Unbeaten Roger Clemens won his 14th game tonight, allowing seven hits and striking out 11 batters while pitching eight full innings, as the Boston Red Sox defeated the Baltimore Orioles, 5–3. Clemens is one victory from the American League record for victories at the start of the season. The record is shared by Dave McNally of the Baltimore Orioles in 1969 and Johnny Allen of the Cleveland Indians in 1937.
Cory Snyder’s groundout with the bases loaded in the ninth inning snapped a 3–3 tie and Fran Mullins added a two-run single as Cleveland beat California, 6–3. The Indians loaded the bases against Mike Witt, 8–6, on a walk to Andre Thornton, Mel Hall’s single and a sacrifice bunt by Brook Jacoby, who reached first when pinch-runner Otis Nixon beat the throw to third. Snyder followed with a grounder that forced Hall and Nixon scored. With two outs, Mullins punched a single to left, scoring Jacoby and Snyder. Dickie Noles, 1–1 went the final 2 ⅔ innings for the win.
Mike Aldrete’s sacrifice fly off Scott Terry (0–2) in the 12th inning scored Chili Davis and enabled San Francisco to remain in first place in the National League West with a 7–6 win over the Reds. Robby Thompson, the Giants’ second baseman, became the first major leaguer to get caught stealing four times in a game. He was thrown out at second by the catcher Bo Diaz in the fourth, sixth and ninth innings and was picked off by the pitcher, John Franco, in the 11th — the play was scored as caught stealing when Thompson broke for second.
The Brewers bowed to the Tigers, 4–2. Kirk Gibson hit a two-run homer with one out in the 11th inning, giving Detroit the victory. Lou Whitaker led off by singling to third off Dan Plesac (4–5) and took second on Alan Trammell’s sacrifice. Gibson then hit a 1–2 pitch into the upper deck in right field to make a winner of the reliever Willie Hernandez (3–3).
Mike Scott pitched a two-hitter, and Bill Doran and Kevin Bass each hit bases-empty home runs tonight, leading the Houston Astros to a 5–0 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Scott (7–5) allowed only first- and fourth-inning singles to Ken Landreaux in recording his second shutout of the season. He did not walk a batter and struck out 11 to increase his major league-leading total to 148. Doran led off the first inning by sending the first pitch from Jerry Reuss (2–6) over the left-field wall. It was Doran’s fifth home run of the season and the third time he had opened the game with a home run. Houston added two more runs in the second. Consecutive singles by Bass, Jose Cruz and Dickie Thon loaded the bases. Bass scored on John Mizerock’s double-play grounder and Scott singled to right to score Cruz. Bass sent a 2–0 pitch over the left-field wall to open the fourth to provide a 4–0 lead. Doran singled to center with one out in the fifth and stole second. Doran went to third on a ground out and scored when Enos Cabell threw into the dirt on Phil Garner’s grounder for the final run.
The Twins defeated the Royals, 6–4. Kent Hrbek’s triple powered Minnesota’s three-run first inning, then the Twins survived a four-run Kansas City ninth to defeat the Royals. Mike Smithson, 7–6, allowed eight hits over 8 ⅓ innings. He brought a three-hit shutout into the ninth before the Royals rallied against three pitchers.
The Blue Jays come from behind to beat the Yankees, 14–7, despite outhitting the Yanks just 19 to 18. Damaso Garcia has a record-tying 4 doubles for the Jays. The Toronto Blue Jays outslugged the Yankees, battering Ron Guidry for six runs in less than three innings, then erupting against Brian Fisher and Bob Shirley in the final three innings. Jesse Barfield drove in five runs, including three with a seventh-inning home run that put the Blue Jays ahead, 9–7, and Damaso Garcia cracked four doubles, tying a major-league record.
It wasn’t the longest homer Jose Canseco hit this season, but the rookie’s three-run blast in the sixth inning Friday night in Oakland against the Chicago White Sox ranks as one of his most important. It was 334 feet, but I’ll take it,” said Canseco, whose hit along with Mike Davis’ three-run homer and Jerry Willard’s solo shot powered Oakland’s seven-run sixth in a come-from-behind 8–6 victory. Canseco has 19 homers, tying him with California’s Wally Joyner and Toronto’s Jesse Barfield for the league lead. He leads the AL in RBI with 64. The two starters, Oakland’s Chris Codiroli and Chicago’s Neil Allen, pitched hitless ball into the fifth, until Davis doubled with two out in the fifth off Chicago starter Neil Allen. “We knew sooner or later we would have to snap out of it,” Canseco said. “Tonight we played a little more relaxed. We were a game out of first before the bottom dropped out.”
The Pirates routed the Expos, 7–1. Johnnie Ray’s two-run double hightlighted a seven-run sixth inning as Pittsburgh snapped a four-game losing streak. Rick Rhoden (8–4) pitched a five-hitter and struck out a career-high 11 batters for his sixth victory in his last seven decisions and started the rally with his second hit of the game. The Montreal starter Jay Tibbs (4–4) had a three-hit shutout when Rhoden lead off the sixth with a single. A walk to Barry Bonds and a single by Joe Orsulak loaded the bases and Ray doubled into the left-field corner to put the Pirates in front.
Jim Presley’s 15th homer of the season broke a tie in the seventh inning as Seattle won over the Texas Rangers, 6–5. Presley hit a 1–1 pitch from reliever Jeff Russell deep into the left-field stands. He also singled home a run in the first. The Seattle third baseman has seven homers and 20 RBI in his last 20 games. Matt Young, 7–4, pitched 2 ⅓ innings of one-hit relief to gain the victory.
Philadelphia beat St. Louis, 2–1 in 17 innings. Milt Thompson singled John Russell home from second base with one out in the top of the 17th inning that snapped the Cardinals’ six-game winning streak. Thompson’s game-winning hit came off Rick Ownbey, 1–2, the sixth St. Louis pitcher. It made a winner of Kent Tekulve, 2–1, who pitched three scoreless innings before giving way to Tom Hume, who recorded his first save.
The scheduled game between the New York Mets and the Cubs at Chicago was postponed due to rain. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on August 6.
San Diego Padres 4, Atlanta Braves 5
Boston Red Sox 5, Baltimore Orioles 3
Cleveland Indians 6, California Angels 3
San Francisco Giants 7, Cincinnati Reds 6
Milwaukee Brewers 2, Detroit Tigers 4
Los Angeles Dodgers 0, Houston Astros 5
Kansas City Royals 4, Minnesota Twins 6
Toronto Blue Jays 14, New York Yankees 7
Chicago White Sox 6, Oakland Athletics 8
Montreal Expos 1, Pittsburgh Pirates 7
Texas Rangers 5, Seattle Mariners 6
Philadelphia Phillies 2, St. Louis Cardinals 1
With corporate merger activity suddenly on the rise, Wall Street was treated yesterday to a number of big stock gains in a market that otherwise rose only modestly on light volume. The market’s overall advance, however, was large enough to send some important indexes to record levels and to put the Dow Jones industrial average just a fraction below its record high. The highlights of the session, however, were related to possible takeovers, especially a 15 ¾-point gain in Sanders Associates, to 50 ½, on consolidated turnover of more than six million shares. The Loral Corporation offered to acquire the manufacturer of defense electronics for $44 a share, a price that Sanders said was inadequate. Speculators were obviously expecting a better offer. The gain in the Dow was much more modest. The blue-chip average rose just 5.06, closing at 1,885.26 and barely making up for a 4.85-point loss on Thursday. The record close is 1,885.90, set on June 6. For the week, the Dow rose 5.72 points.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1885.26 (+5.06)
Born:
Sam Claflin, English actor (“Daisy Jones & the Six”, “The Hunger Games”, “Me Before You”), in Ipswich, England, United Kingdom.
Drake Bell, American actor (“Drake and Josh”), musician (“Terrific”), and convict, in Newport Beach, California.
LaShawn Merritt, American sprinter (Olympics, 3 gold medals and 1 bronze, 2008 and 2016), in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Evgeniya Belyakova, Russian National Team and WNBA forward (Olympics, 2012; Los Angeles Sparks), in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Died:
Don Rogers, 23, NFL safety (Cleveland Browns), of a heart attack after using cocaine.
Edna Mae Cooper, 85, American actress (“Folly of Vanity”, “Grounds for Divorce”, “The Ten Commandments” [1956]).
(Otis W.) “Joe” Maphis, 75, American session and country music guitarist (“Dim Lights”), of lung cancer.
History Diaries 