The Reagan Administration is considering a proposal that calls for simultaneously reducing the number of underground nuclear tests by the United States and Soviet Union and the number of strategic weapons on each side. The idea of a link between reductions in strategic weapons and in testing is contained in a draft of a letter from President Reagan to Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, and has been supported by State Department officials. The Administration has never before suggested reducing the number of tests. Administration officials cautioned that there was still debate within the Administration over the idea. According to the idea, the number of tests that each side could carry out each year would be tied to reductions in strategic arms. If both sides agreed to cut strategic weapons by 30 percent, for example, they might reduce the number of underground tests by a similar percentage. But some officials said the fine points had not been worked out.
Some critics of the proposal within the Government said there was no direct correlation between the number of weapons that each side has and the number of tests they need to conduct. They said nuclear tests such as those carried out to develop tactical nuclear weapons were conducted for weapons that would not be covered by a new strategic arms treaty. But supporters of the idea said that the United States could reduce its testing without hurting its security. They also said the Soviet proposal for a ban on testing had increased public interest and that the proposal might be a way of addressing those concerns. The Soviet Union has imposed a yearlong moratorium on its underground tests that is due to end on August 6. On Tuesday, Mr. Gorbachev said the Soviet Union might extend its moratorium, depending on American positions on arms control issues. The White House today confirmed reports that American and Soviet experts would discuss verification issues on nuclear testing. Officials said they expected the meeting to take place later this month in Geneva.
Soviet experts are engaged in “very serious, substantive preparations” for a second summit meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet Foreign Minister said here today. The statement, by Eduard A. Shevardnadze, came at the end of an official visit to Britain. British officials said that in his conversations with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and others, Mr. Shevardnadze appeared to go out of his way to avoid polemics and emphasized areas of agreement between Moscow and London. “He came here to be nice,” one official said, summing up an impression that the Soviet delegation clearly hoped the Thatcher Government would relay to Washington.
The U.S. Senate is expected to ratify a treaty today that would make it easier for Britain to extradite members of the outlawed Irish Republican Army. Under the treaty, those accused of violent crimes such as murder and kidnaping would no longer be allowed to avoid extradition by claiming that their crimes were politically motivated. Proponents said they expect to have the necessary two-thirds majority when the treaty comes up for a final vote today. Approval would end a stalemate that has lasted for more than a year.
In the first serious clash between the two leaders of the French government, President Francois Mitterrand refused to sign a decree that would have activated Premier Jacques Chirac’s program to return 65 nationalized businesses to the private sector. Until Chirac’s conservative government took office in March under Mitterrand, a Socialist, France’s president and premier were always from the same party. Chirac said he will introduce new legislation to overcome Mitterrand’s objections.
Former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit will go on trial Thursday on charges of violating a law barring him from political activity, Turkish news agencies reported today. Conviction could mean a prison sentence of one to three years. The state prosecutor’s office in Ankara indicted Mr. Ecevit last month after he addressed a convention of the Democratic Left Party on May 18. His wife, Rahsan, heads the party. At the convention, Mr. Ecevit, who has been banned from active politics until 1992, called for a new constitution to establish what he described as true democracy for Turkey.
Arab-Americans arriving in Israel have been subjected to special procedures designed to ensure that they do not remain, and the United States has complained to Israel about it, U.S. Embassy officials said in Tel Aviv. The officials said the procedures include temporary confiscation of passports and air tickets, shortening of tourist visas and a requirement that the visitors post large sums of money until they leave. Israeli officials said the moves are an attempt to clamp down on illegal aliens and ensure that visitors do not overstay their visas.
Public and private spending will be slashed to concentrate resources on winning the economically ruinous war with Iran that has dragged on for six and one half years, President Saddam Hussein said today. In an address broadcast to the nation to mark the 18th anniversary in power of his Baath Socialist Party, President Hussein said frugality would bring Iraq closer to “the final victory.” He said the measures would include cuts in government and private spending, improvements in industrial production and more efficient use of resources, but gave no details. The President also said the oil production quota of 1.3 million barrels a day alloted to Iraq by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was not enough, and demanded an increase to equal Iran’s level of 2.4 million. Both nations depend on oil revenues to finance the war, which began in September 1980 when Iraq tried to gain full control of the Shatt Al Arab waterway, which is Iraq’s only sea outlet and forms part of the southern border. Iraq has not released figures on the budget or public expenditures since the war began. But foreign diplomats based in Baghdad said last month that the foreign debt is about $40 billion and the Government plans to reduce imports of luxury goods and other non-essentials by 20 percent.
The President and First Lady participate in an arrival ceremony in honor of Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mohammed Khan Junejo. The Prime Minister of Pakistan assured the Reagan Administration today that his country was not developing a nuclear bomb. The assurances by the official, Mohammad Khan Junejo, came after a United States warning that such development would result in an end to American financial assistance. While some officials familiar with the warning said the Administration was simply stating the provisions of existing law, the tone was unusually sharp and the message was delivered in a manner to underscore that the United States Government was “serious,” a senior Administration official said later. Mr. Junejo, who is making his first state visit to the United States, met with Mr. Reagan for about an hour after being welcomed to full military honors in a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House.
[Ed: The Pakistanis were lying through their teeth, of course.]
President J. R. Jayewardene today rejected new demands by the main opposition party for early general elections to test popular opinion on a Government plan to end Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. In a letter to Sirimavo Bandaranaike, a former Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Freedom Party, Mr. Jayewardene said he would not call general elections until 1989.
China’s Foreign Ministry said that the approved final version of a new Japanese history textbook deliberately covers up Japan’s role in starting the 1937-45 Sino-Japanese war. China had previously complained about Japanese textbooks concerning the war, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman noted “the removal or revision of a number of obviously erroneous narrations.” However, because it “covers up the basic fact that the Japanese militarists launched the war of aggression against neighboring countries,” the new version “is hardly satisfactory,” the spokesman said.
Ten Filipino Roman Catholic nuns were freed unharmed today by Moslem kidnappers, a Defense Ministry official said. The regional military commander, Brigadier General Rodrigo Gutang, called Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile by telephone and told him the nuns were released without ransom at 6:30 AM, Mr. Enrile’s press officer, Ed Pangilinan, said. The nuns had been abducted from a convent in the southern city of Marawi on Friday.
Canada, joining the United States in sharp criticism of an anti-Semitic book attributed to a Syrian official, has called for consultation among the Western allies on a joint response to the publication, a U.S. Jewish leader said. Canadian External Affairs Minister Joe Clark, in a message to the Canadian representative of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, called the book “utterly unacceptable,” according to Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the center. The book, “The Matzo of Zion,” purports to be written by Mustafa Talas, Syria’s defense minister. It repeats the ancient “blood libel” that Jews murder Christians and use their blood to make ritual bread.
The former chief of security for the dictator Francois Duvalier was convicted of murder and torture today and immediately sentenced to death after a raucous 18-hour trial. As the verdict against the defendant, Luc Desyr, was announced at 4:20 AM, wild cheers and cries of “Murderer!” and “Assassin!” erupted from the jury box and the crowded public gallery at the Palace of Justice. The trial was broadcast live on television. On Tuesday, policemen armed with riot sticks entered the courtroom to control unruly spectators.
Nicaragua has demanded that the United States abide by a World Court ruling and pay war damages as a penalty for supporting Nicaraguan contras, a senior Sandinista official said. Foreign Minister Miguel D’Escoto made the demand recently to U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco told a news conference in Managua. Acting on a Nicaraguan complaint, the International Court of Justice ruled July 27 that U.S. support for the contras violates the U.N. Charter. The court said the United States should stop aiding the rebels and pay Nicaragua an amount to be agreed on by the two sides. The court’s decisions are not binding.
U.S. Senators opposed to sending military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels said today that they would stage a filibuster against the legislation when it reached the Senate floor, probably later this summer. “The people in the group are adamantly opposed to contra aid,” said Senator Jim Sasser, Democrat of Tennessee and a leading opponent of President Reagan’s plans in Central America. “They think it’s improper and counterproductive to the interests of the United States.”
A member of the ruling military junta today repeated his announced intention to retire in three years, further eroding support for Gen. Augusto Pinochet to continue ruling past 1989. The comments by General Fernando Matthei, the Air Force commander, came a day after two other members of the four-member junta indicated that they would not necessarily support General Pinochet in a referendum on his rule scheduled for 1989. “Full democracy begins in 1989,” General Matthei told the newspaper La Segunda. “As of that date, there is nothing left for me to do. There will be an elected congress, political parties and everything that represents a full democracy.”
The U.S. pressed the appointment of Robert J. Brown, a black businessman, as the next Ambassador to South Africa. “They are trying to compress in two days what usually takes months, because of the desire to have the nomination announced in a very short period of time,” one Administration official said. One plan is for Mr. Reagan to announce Mr. Brown’s nomination during a policy speech on South Africa next week. In South Africa today, a court rejected an appeal by a militant labor union to have the country’s newest emergency decree overturned as unlawful. But the court softened some of the restrictions so that detainees may now have access to lawyers.
In South Africa, the Natal Province Supreme Court today rejected an appeal by a militant labor union to have South Africa’s newest emergency decree overturned as unlawful, but softened some of the restrictions so that detainees may now have access to lawyers. Previously, detainees were not permitted visits by lawyers, and they still may not see relatives without official permission. “No doubt relatives of detainees have the strongest personal reason to want family visits,” said Justice John Didcott when he read out today’s ruling in Durban. “But in the eyes of the law it is more important that there should be access by a lawyer.”
South African security forces were reported yesterday to have made a sweep through the black township of Soweto in an attempt to get striking residents to pay their rents. The Soweto municipal council had set Tuesday as a deadline for the rent boycotters to pay for their municipal housing but few showed up, according to sources in South Africa reached from New York. “They went in demanding to see receipts for rent,” Len Kalane, the news editor of The City Press, a leading black Soweto weekly newspaper, said by telephone.
Two Soviet astronauts returned to earth after a four-month mission that included the first flight between two space stations and the construction of a 50-foot tower as practice for building future large structures in space. The return of the Soyuz T-15 capsule was televised.
The House paved the way for ratification of $11.7 billion in spending cuts made last March under the Gramm-Rudman balanced-budget law but invalidated by the Supreme Court. In a voice vote, the House approved procedures set earlier in the day by the Rules Committee under which a vote can be taken on ratifying the cuts and other actions regarding the deficit law. The March 1 cuts were the first made under the law’s five-year plan to balance the federal budget by 1991. The full House is scheduled to act on the legislation today.
President Reagan and the Presidential Party attends performances by violinist Eugene Fodor and pianist Judith Olson.
A local judge ordered this city’s striking garbage collectors back to work today, responding to official fears of strike-induced violence and other potential dangers to public safety. The judge, Edward J. Blake of Common Pleas Court, found that the 16-day-old strike by 2,500 sanitation workers presented a “clear and present danger to the health and safety of the citizens of Philadelphia,” and ordered them back on the job at 9 AM Thursday. Another major city, Detroit, struggled with its own walkout, as a strike by 7,000 municipal workers idled buses, garbage trucks and health clinics. Mayor Coleman A. Young of Detroit said he, too, would seek a back-to-work order. How many would return to work in Philadelphia was uncertain after today’s order, although the president of the garbage collectors’ union, Earl Stout, said Tuesday that he would not oppose such an order.
White House chief of staff Donald T. Regan scrapped a plan by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to testify before Congress this week in favor of legislation that would ban all advertising of tobacco products, Administration officials said. The Office of Management and Budget also withheld approval of Koop’s remarks on grounds that the legislation has implications beyond health issues, officials said.
Despite a growing perception that the 55-mph national speed limit is widely ignored, most Americans favor retaining the law, according to the Gallup Poll. But public support was found to be the lowest since the law was enacted in 1974. In the mid-June survey, 66% favor keeping the national speed limit at 55, while 32% would like to see it repealed. Support for the law grew from 73% after the Arab oil embargo in 1973 to a peak of 81% in 1980. The latest survey showed that most Americans support the statute because they believe it saves lives.
The Justice Department said it is investigating whether members of a paramilitary group violated civil rights law in detaining 16 illegal aliens near the Mexican border until federal authorities arrived. The FBI is interviewing several of the Mexican nationals involved. The aliens said they were detained at gunpoint by the group, Civilian Materiel Assistance, but CMA leaders have denied the accusation. It is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or one year in prison, to interfere with any person because of national origin or race or intent to interfere with his “applying for or enjoying… employment.”
Detroit municipal employees struck after a fruitless 10-hour negotiating meeting. Struggling through the first full day of a walkout by 7,000 city workers, Detroit’s 1.2 million residents made do today without buses, garbage pickups, health clinics, libraries or summer park programs. The strike began at midnight after a 10-hour negotiating session. No new talks have been scheduled, and other unions honored the picket lines that were set up by Michigan Council 25 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. By the end of the day, the city was preparing to file papers in Wayne County Circuit Court to force some workers to return to their jobs.
Lawrence B. Mulloy, who directed the space shuttle’s solid rocket booster program at the time of the Challenger disaster, announced today that he would retire from the space agency at the end of the week. Mr. Mulloy drew criticism in recent months for his actions before the Challenger disaster Jan. 28, in which the seven crew members died. He has said “system failure” rather than individuals were to blame for the disaster. Mr. Mulloy, who is 52 years old, gave no reason for his retirement, which is to be effective Friday. On the night before the Challenger was launched, Mr. Mulloy argued with engineers from the booster rocket’s manufacturer, Morton Thiokol, who contended that cold weather might cause the booster joints to fail. Their concern did not reach those with authority to halt the launching.
A robot examined the Titanic from crow’s-nest to gymnasium. Dr. Robert D. Ballard called it “the best day yet” in the exploration of the sunken luxury liner, which sank in 1912 with the loss of 1,500 lives after striking an iceberg. “I’m very relieved not to find any human remains,” Dr. Ballard said at a news conference by radio tonight. “We have covered so much now, it is very unlikely that we will.” He pointed out, however, that passengers and crew migrated to the stern as it tilted upward, and their remains might still be found in debris from the disintegrated stern.
The BankAmerica Corporation today reported a quarterly loss of $640 million, the second-largest ever for an American bank. “It’s dreadful,” said Lawrence W. Cohn, banking analyst at Merrill Lynch. “It’s another indication that they still haven’t gotten their hands around the extent of their problems.” Bank officials and analysts said the company, which owns the Bank of America, the second-largest in the nation, would not fail as a result of the loss reported today, but they added that the bank continued to be saddled with $5 billion in loans not being repaid on time. $1.03 Billion in Losses “The bank has the ability to sustain tremendous losses,” said Joseph T. Arsenio 2d, an analyst with Birr, Wilson & Company in San Francisco. He added, however, that “they can’t go through too many more of these before they’ll be in the hands of the regulators.” In the past five quarters, the company has rung up losses totaling $1.03 billion.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled that the parents of a boy who died after being refused treatment because his family did not have money or insurance were entitled to $850,000 in damages. The money is to be paid by two Brownsville, Texas, hospitals, including the one that had the boy transferred to another facility because the family had no money, and a Brownsville doctor. Fermin Gracia Jr., 9, died in 1979, of complications that apparently developed after he was kicked in the stomach, according to court records.
Three men were found guilty of conspiring to kidnap four drifters and force them into slavery on an isolated ranch in Kerrville, Texas, where one of them was tortured to death with a cattle prod. Walter Wesley Ellebracht Sr., 55, his son, Walter Wesley Ellebracht Jr., 21, and Carlton Robert Caldwell, 21, were convicted of violating Texas’ organized crime law in the March, 1984, abduction of the drifters, including 27-year-old Anthony Bates, whose charred remains were found on the ranch.
A charitable foundation says it will drop its effort to break the will of an oil heir that requires her $435 million trust be spent solely in Marin County, a wealthy San Francisco suburb. The San Francisco Foundation and Public Advocates, a public-interest law firm, last year sued to break the will of the heir, Beryl Buck, so that the money could be spent in other San Francisco Bay area counties. The trial began in February, but two weeks ago the foundation made an unexpected offer to negotiate a settlement. Under the proposed agreement, the foundation would turn the trust over to a new foundation controlled by Marin County residents. The announcement could come Thursday afternoon when the trial resumes for the first time in 15 days in Santa Clara Superior Court. The foundation was chosen by Mrs. Buck to administer her will. The trust is composed mostly of shares from the family oil company.
The Army today lifted an order that has kept more than 350 OH-6 helicopters grounded for more than a month. The OH-6 Cayuse helicopters, light-weight helicopters used for observation, will be returned to flight status gradually over the next two months as modifications are made to the tail-rotor assemblies, the Army said. The Army grounded the OH-6’s after a crash June 7 near Jackson, Tenn. The pilot was not injured in the crash, but the copter struck the ground so hard that the aircraft lost its main rotor blades and was destroyed. The Army said today that its investigation of the crash had confirmed a preliminary finding that it was caused by the loss of a special abrasion strip affixed to the helicopter’s tail rotor.
A nuclear reactor operator can meet all the rules set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and still have potential safety problems, witnesses told a House hearing. The meeting focused on the Pilgrim Plant, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, one of 16 plants said to have the worst problems.
A partial cloud cover and scattered showers provided temporary relief from a searing heat wave to parts of the Southeast. But the hot, humid weather spread to the Midwest, prompting officials in St. Louis to declare a heat warning. Temperatures dipped into the 90s in Charleston, South Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, Birmingham, Alabama, and Jackson, Mississippi. The stagnant front has been blamed for at least 14 deaths in the Southeast. The temperature in St. Louis was near 100, and most of Illinois had 90-degree weather.
700 recipients of blood transfusions since 1977 may have received blood contaminated with the AIDS virus, the Greater New York Blood Program announced. The agency is working to identify the patients, who received blood from people later found to be carrying AIDS virus antibodies, and expects to begin notifying them in the fall. The patients received blood given in earlier donations by people who have recently tried to donate blood and were found in a screening test to be carrying antibodies to the AIDS virus. Infection with the virus does not necessarily lead to AIDS, an incurable depletion of the immune system.
The cost of a major experiment in the program to seek a defense against nuclear missiles was underestimated by 20 percent, the General Accounting Office said today. As a result, an important element of the experiment had to be eliminated. It appears to be the first documented and publicly acknowledged case of cost underestimating in the Strategic Defense Initiative, the space-based missile defense program. But such problems are common in other weapon projects, and one Pentagon official predicted that it would be “the first of many” for the program.
Major League Baseball: No games today, as the All-Star break concludes.
After three losing efforts in a row for the market, stock prices rose moderately yesterday on heavy volume as investors scoured the wreckage for bargains. “Every time the market goes down with the velocity we’ve experienced, there is a rebound sometime,” said Charles Jensen, a market analyst with the MKI Securities Corporation. “Today was that day.” The Dow Jones industrial average rose as high as 1,787 yesterday morning before retreating to 1,774.18 at the close, for a gain of 5.48 points.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1774.18 (+5.48)
Born:
Timofey Mozgov, Russian National Team and NBA center (Olympics, bronze medal, 2012; NBA Champions-Cavaliers, 2016; New York Knicks, Denver Nuggets, Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers, Brooklyn Nets), in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Dustin Boyd, Canadian NHL centre (Calgary Flames, Nashville Predators, Montreal Canadiens), in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Dominique Edison, NFL wide receiver (Tennessee Titans), in San Augustine, Texas.
Laura Carmichael, British actress (Lady Edith Crawley — “Downton Abbey”), in Southampton, England, United Kingdom.
Calum Gittins, New Zealand actor (“The King’s Speech”), in Auckland, New Zealand.
Florent Geroux, French jockey (Breeders’ Cup Classic, 2017; Kentucky Derby, 2021), in Argentan, France.
Died:
Jerrold R. Zacharias, 81, American physicist who designed the first atomic clock.
History Diaries 