In his letter to Mikhail S. Gorbachev last weekend, President Reagan proposed to share “the benefits” of the space defense system if the Soviet Union would agree to an arrangement leading to its eventual deployment in the 1990’s, Administration officials said today. In a detailed elaboration of the letter, the officials said they expected Moscow initially to reject the President’s effort to seek their acquiescence in the space defense program, known as “Star Wars.” But they stressed that the significance of the offer, one of many proposals in the letter, is that for the first time the United States has offered to negotiate an agreement on the space defense program. They said they hoped that this, along with other new American proposals, would be sufficient to persuade Mr. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, to agree to a date for a summit meeting in the United States this year.
The officials said Mr. Reagan insisted on offering to share the “Star Wars” system with the Soviet Union in his letter to Mr. Gorbachev. Mr. Reagan, from the time that he startled the world in March 1983 by proposing the program, has talked about sharing the fruits of the research with the Russians, if that would lead to the abolition of offensive nuclear weapons. The United States had anticipated an official announcement by today on a meeting between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze in Washington on September 19 and 20, but the Soviet Union has still not given its final approval. Such a session is envisioned to plan for an eventual summit meeting late in the year, although Moscow has not formally set a date. Speaking of the letter, one official said that one of its results is to “make very clear that Ronald Reagan is absolutely devoted to S.D.I.”
Moscow’s anti-drinking campaign was stepped up, 15 months after the Government announced stiff measures against alcohol abuse and 11 months after it raised the price of vodka. On Thursday, the Government added 20 to 25 percent more to the cost of a bottle, but there was no vodka available to the people waiting in line at the Government liquor store in central Moscow. While announcing the price increase for vodka, the Government said the consumer cost of children’s clothes, fur coats, clocks and watches and certain kinds of shoes and motorcycles would be reduced by 20 to 30 percent. The mood of the crowd outside the No. 14 liquor store in central Moscow was sullen today. The price of vodka was up. Again. Fifteen months after the Government announced stiff measures against alcohol abuse, and 11 months after prices were raised, the cost of a bottle of vodka went up by 20 to 25 percent. The exact price was unclear because inside the store — despite a line of several hundred people snaking along the sidewalk outside — there was no vodka.
Lech Walesa accused the Polish authorities today of trying to divide the banned Solidarity union by releasing only some of the country’s political prisoners. Mr. Walesa criticized the Government’s recent act of clemency after meeting with Bogdan Lis, a senior union activist who was freed from prison Thursday after having served 18 months of a two-year sentence.
Italy’s 45th postwar Government was sworn in today, and Bettino Craxi, a Socialist, is again the Prime Minister. The formation of the new Government, which will go before Parliament for a vote of confidence next week, ended a 35-day crisis. Through intense, often angry bargaining, Mr. Craxi was able to reconstitute the five-party coalition that he led for a postwar record 34 months before resigning on June 27. The new agreement provides that Mr. Craxi will resign in March to allow a Christian Democrat to take the prime minister’s post.
A Palestinian man suspected of providing false passports to the hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro has been extradited to Italy, the Justice Ministry said today. A second Palestinian, convicted in absentia in Italy in connection with the hijacking, continued to be questioned in West Berlin, city officials said. A Justice Ministry official identified the extradited man as Salek Hamade, 23 years old. He said Mr. Hamade had been refused political asylum and was extradited on Sunday. Italian news agencies said Mr. Hamade was charged with aggravated theft with terrorist intentions and was being questioned in Florence. The other Palestinian, Yussef Hisham Nasser, was arrested Tuesday in West Berlin on charges of possessing a false passport. Mr. Nasser, 24, was convicted in absentia in Rome of complicity in the hijacking.
An Israeli general who was reprimanded and stripped of his command for his role in the massacres in Palestinian quarters of Beirut in 1982 was named military attaché to the United States today. The Washington assignment for the Israeli, Major General Amos Yaron, is considered one of the most prestigious in the Israeli military, dealing with, among other things, the $1.8 billion a year in military aid the United States provides Israel. The aid is nearly half the $4 billion annual total aid, the highest to any single country from the United States. General Yaron, a 46-year-old senior paratroop commander, will also deal with arms purchases and with relations strained by recent allegations that an Israeli spy ring operated in the United States and by charges of theft of American technology for cluster bombs.
For Staff Sgt. William B. Davis and his squad of young American paratroopers, home for 22 days at a time is a patch of hot sand inside an uncharted minefield overlooking the Strait of Tiran in Egypt. Their 808-member battalion from the 82d Airborne Division is taking its turn serving under a protocol governing the security of the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel returned to Egypt by 1982. With excitement over the treaty between Egypt and Israel long faded, the tedious chore of policing the peace is left to such soldiers, who wear distinctive orange berets. On Sunday, Vice President Bush is scheduled to visit the headquarters of the Multinational Force and Observers, as the unit is called, near El Arish.
A large bomb exploded at a busy intersection in Christian East Beirut today, and the police said one man was killed and 30 people were wounded. It was the second attack in the city’s Christian areas in five days and the third car bombing in the capital this week. The blast today in the suburb of Dora started several fires and shattered windows within a radius of 100 yards. The Voice of Lebanon, the main Christian radio station, said the bomb had been planted in a parked car.
The Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco delivered a private message to President Reagan today from the Shiite Muslims who held him captive for nearly 19 months. Father Jenco also implored the Shiites “to end this situation” and release the remaining American hostages in Lebanon. Freed last Saturday, Father Jenco returned to the United States today after stops in West Germany, Italy and Britain. He said at the White House that the ordeal of the hostages “must be resolved soon.”
Malaysians will vote in national and state elections this weekend that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has been been portraying as a choice between stability and chaos. In speech after speech around this peaceful and largely prosperous Southeast Asian nation, including here in his home state of Kedah, Dr. Mahathir has sounded a simple if startling election theme: If voters fail to return his National Front coalition to power with a two-thirds majority there will be racial violence and economic disaster. His opponents, rejecting such contentions and saying that the only danger to Malaysia is the unbridled power of the coalition, have responded in kind.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted overwhelmingly today for strict economic sanctions on South Africa, including a ban on any new loans or investments by American businesses. The 15-to-2 vote was a strong bipartisan majority, with eight Democrats and seven Republicans supporting the measure. Two Republicans, Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Larry Pressler of South Dakota, dissented. Lawmakers from both parties hailed the committee vote as a clear signal to both the Government in Pretoria and the Reagan Administration that Congress is determined to enact a stringent sanctions bill this year and is prepared to override a Presidential veto.
South Africa restored wide powers to regional police commanders whose authority to issue orders under the emergency had been ruled illegal by the supreme court. President P. W. Botha amended the seven-week-old emergency regulations to extend the definition of who may issue orders to include divisional police commissioners. The amendment was backdated to June 12, the day the original orders were issued.
On July 17 the space agency cited evidence that the Challenger crew members had been unaware of the disaster unfolding about them, but it acknowledged today that at that time some key officials had known for almost a week that the astronauts had activated their emergency breathing packs. But officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration complained at a press briefing that they had been taking a “very bum rap” in news reports and editorials that have suggested the agency was deliberately concealing information about the last moments of the seven astronauts, who died when the space shuttle broke up shortly after launching Jan. 28. The officials said that in sensitive matters involving how the crew died, they have consistently tried not to discuss isolated pieces of evidence. The agency said in a statement today that all important evidence was communicated first to the families of the dead crew members, and then, once the investigation of the cause of death was complete, to the public. The briefing today was held to respond to a crescendo of complaints that the agency retrieved the astronauts’ personal emergency air packs as long ago as March but did not inform the public until Monday that three of the packs had been activated, an indication that some of the crew members survived the initial breakup and were struggling to keep alive.
For several years residents here have been preparing for thousands of tourists to descend for West Coast launchings of the space shuttle and for hundreds of aerospace workers to bring those launchings about. A construction boom deposited half a dozen new motels along the main streets, and tracts of new houses and apartments filled fields where farmers once grew flowers for seed for gardeners around the world. But now that boom appears ended with the announcement by the Air Force on Thursday that the space shuttle program at Vandenberg Air Force base, Lompoc’s biggest employer, was being shelved until 1992. The Air Force said that a new $3.3 billion shuttle launching facility at the base would be put on a “caretaker” status, delaying any shuttle action for at least six years.
President Reagan, ending a dispute between his farm policy and foreign policy advisers, today authorized the sale of subsidized wheat to the Soviet Union. The wheat deal was announced by Secretary of Agriculture Richard E. Lyng, who had urged the extension of the export subsidy. American farmers will receive subsidy payments that could total as much as $75 million. “Today’s decision should boost U.S. agricultural exports,” a White House statement said. “This decision is designed to help make the American farmer competitive by putting him on an equal footing with his foreign counterparts.”
President Reagan participates in a meeting to discuss the override attempt of the President’s veto of the Textile and Apparel Trade Enforcement Act with Bipartisan Members of Congress.
President Reagan participates in an interview on the anti-drug effort with Newsweek’s Editor in Chief.
A multibillion-dollar Federal program to give financial relief to tens of thousands of farmers in the drought-seared Southern and Middle Atlantic states was put into action today, a week after the Administration said it could not legally take such action. The Agriculture Department announced a program that resembles a package of relief measures that are quickly advancing in Congress. Democrats in the Senate, which approved its package today, said they believed the Administration responded to the farmers’ plight only after Congress acted on legislation of its own. They said the Administration’s action would not stop the Congressional efforts.
The Senate, responding to the pressures of an election year, today loaded up legislation to raise the Government’s debt ceiling with a variety of extraneous measures. They included bills to aid drought-stricken farmers, combat terrorism and give a tax advantage to the Lummi Indians in Washington State. In addition, amendments tacked onto the debt ceiling legislation included proposals to allow charitable deductions for the donation of hay or other commodities to farmers in drought areas and to give nongovernment groups access to surplus cheese for distribution to the poor. The Senate stopped short of approving the debt ceiling bill tonight, however, so the legislation could be held in reserve as a vehicle for the President’s $100 million in military aid to the rebels in Nicaragua and economic sanctions against the South African Government. These proposals are expected to be offered as amendments before the August 15 recess if the Senate can not agree to act on them separately.
Four witnesses, including a former Federal prosecutor, today contradicted Justice William H. Rehnquist’s sworn testimony about his role in Republicans’ Election Day efforts to challenge voter qualifications in Phoenix in the early 1960’s. The testimony, including a detailed description of a shoving match at a polling place, put Republican supporters of Justice Rehnquist’s nomination to be Chief Justice of the United States on the defensive for the first time. Several Democrats said it raised serious questions about whether Justice Rehnquist testified truthfully in denying he had personally challenged the qualifications of any Phoenix voter from 1958 to 1968 and had never harassed any voters. Tonight several witnesses from Phoenix supported Justice Rehnquist’s testimony that his activity had been confined to giving legal advice to Republican poll workers and challengers and occasionally going to precincts to settle disputes.
The unemployment rate fell two-tenths of a percentage point in July, to 6.8 percent, the lowest level for the combined civilian and military work force in six months, the Labor Department reported today. The number of workers on nonfarm payrolls climbed by 389,000, a somewhat stronger performance than most economists had expected even after allowing for the return to work of 150,000 telecommunications and other workers who had been on strike in June. The unemployment figure for the civilian work force alone was put at 6.9 percent. The report today indicated continued, albeit modest, business expansion and helped reassure some analysts who had begun to worry that poor trade figures and other recent data might be heralding a recession.
On the first day of the stoppage at the USX Corporation, five steelworkers sat in lawn chairs on the dirt beside the road, a blue plastic canopy stretched above them to block the sun, and discussed the prospects for settlement. “It’ll be as long as 1959,” said Gene Billy, 50 years old, a railroad engineer in the huge century-old Edgar Thomson Works of USX Corporation. He meant the last nationwide steel strike, which lasted 116 days. Andrew Marko, 33, a pipefitter, agreed: “I’m expecting a long one, too.”
Three Federal judges threw out a narrow gubernatorial runoff victory in Alabama by the state Attorney General, Charles Graddick, a Democratic candidate to succeed Governor George C. Wallace, saying he had violated Federal voting laws. The Democratic Party had empaneled a committee to review challenges to Mr. Graddick by his primary rival, Lieutenant Governor Bill Baxley. The judges ordered that either Mr. Baxley be certified as the party’s nominee for governor or hold a new election.
House leaders today outlined the major elements of a comprehensive antidrug bill and vowed to spend whatever is needed to reduce drug abuse. Just two of the several dozen proposals likely to be included in the final bill would cost nearly $1 billion a year over the next five years. But Representative Jim Wright of Texas, the House Democratic leader, said: “I don’t think the price tag is important in this instance. We’re not going to quibble and quarrel over whether to spend $1 billion.”
In an emergency response to the proliferation of the drug crack, New York State will order its residential drug-treatment programs on Monday to disregard already overcrowded conditions and try to admit more addicts, the state’s top drug-treatment official said yesterday. In the last two months, residential-drug treatment programs in New York City have become more crowded than ever and are now turning people away or placing them on waiting lists of up to six months, according to the official, Julio A. Martinez, the director of the state’s Division of Substance Abuse Services. The 25 publicly financed residential drug-treatment programs in the city are now at 110 percent of capacity with 3,808 residents, Mr. Martinez said. Another 1,079 people are on waiting lists.
Workers wearing protective clothing and respirators have entered an alcove at the nuclear Nevada Test Site where monitoring equipment was stored for an underground test that went awry. The Department of Energy announced today that the four workers reached one such alcove Wednesday after a parallel tunnel had been dug above the main tunnel, contaminated by the test April 10. An Energy Department spokesman, Barbara Yoerg, said she did not know the condition of the equipment. At least $20 million worth of equipment may have been damaged by high radioactivity, according to the department. Officials are considering the possibility that the radiation entered the alcove through fissures in the tunnel.
A Boston police chief, two captains, a lieutenant, a sergeant, two officers and a retired aide to the State Senate pleaded not guilty today to charges of conspiracy and perjury. The eight men were among 11 indicted Wednesday on charges of taking part in a plot to shape police hierarchies in several Boston area departments by distributing copies of promotional examinations, or by inflating the scores of their allies and lowering those of their enemies.
Tennis ace John McEnroe marries actress Tatum O’Neal; they divorce in 1994.
Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia is released from hospital after a 3-week coma.
Major League Baseball:
The Boston Red Sox defeated the Kansas City Royals 5–3. Jim Rice had three consecutive hits and drove in two runs, including the tiebreaker, in leading Boston. Bruce Hurst (6–5) gave up bases-empty home runs to Hal McRae, Steve Balboni and Jim Sundberg in the fourth inning but gained his first victory since he suffered a groin pull in Minnesota on May 31. Hurst allowed only three other hits, struck out six and walked one in six and one-third innings before needing relief help. Calvin Schiraldi and Joe Sambito finished. The Red Sox scored a run in the first as Wade Boggs, ending a 1-for-17 slump, singled, took second on a wild pitch and came round on a single by Bill Buckner. Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd, the Red Sox pitcher who had been suspended since the All-Star Game break, sat in the dugout and watched the game.
The Detroit Tigers edged the Chicago White Sox, 5–4. Lou Whitaker hit the first pitch of the game into the right-field stands, the 16th lead-off homer of his nine-year career, to lead Detroit. Whitaker also had a run-scoring single as the Tigers won for the 12th time in 16 games since the All-Star break. Walt Terrell (10–8) pitched seven innings, giving up six hits. Willie Hernandez finished up for his 20th save, leaving the tying run on third with one out in the ninth. The loss dropped the White Sox 11 ½ games behind first-place California in the American League West, the farthest back they have been since 1980.
It was a night filled with raucous, festive moments, with collisions between fielders, with a collision between a fielder and the outfield wall, and with fireworks that lighted the gray-black sky over Municipal Stadium. The Yankees and the Indians split a doubleheader in what was an unusual six hours of baseball this evening. The Indians won the first game, 4–3, and the Yankees took the second, 5–3, on a two-run homer by Don Mattingly in the ninth inning to snap their losing streak at four. “He threw me a knuckler that broke down and in,” Mattingly said. “That’s not where he wanted it.” I know how big a hit this was,” he added. “We couldn’t go to five in a row.”
The Dodgers beat the Reds, 9–5. Greg Brock hit his fourth career grand slam in Los Angeles’ five-run first inning, and Bill Madlock drove in three runs with a pair of singles as the Dodgers won their fifth straight. Rick Honeycutt, 7–6, allowed three runs on seven hits over seven innings in handing the Reds their fourth straight loss. Cincinnati right-hander Mario Soto, 3–9 and winless in six starts since May 22, lasted only 1 ⅓ innings.
Texas wins a pair from the host Brewers, winning 7–2 and 8–6. Steve Buechele has a triple and homer to drive in 5 runs in game 1. Bobby Witt (6–9) needed relief help from Dale Mohorcic with one out and runners at first and second in the seventh. Mohorcic got the next two batters and went on to record his second save. Pete O’Brien has a homer in each game and Pete Incaviglia clubs a grand slam in game 2. Texas moves to 3 games behind the Angels in the American League West.
Minnesota’s Bert Blyleven fires a 2-hitter and strikes out a club-record 15 batters to become the 10th pitcher with 3,000 career strikeouts. Blyleven (10–10) reached No. 3,000 when he struck out Mike Davis in the fifth inning, his eighth strikeout of the game. He had a career-record 15 strikeouts for the game, walked one and gave up only a single to Bruce Bochte in the sixth and a home run to Alfredo Griffin in the eighth. Blyleven struck out six of the 12 batters he faced before giving up a hit — a single to Bruce Bochte to open the A’s fifth. The 15 strikeouts tied a club record set previously by three others. Kirby Puckett hits for the cycle to lead the Twins to a romp, 10–1, over the A’s.
Before rain interrupted his act, Dwight Gooden gave one of his best performances of the summer last night when he struck out seven batters in five innings, including six in a row, and led the Mets to a 3–1 victory over the Montreal Expos. Gooden hadn’t struck out that many batters in six weeks, but he flashed the old heat this time before a crowd of 47,883 in Shea Stadium and won a game for the first time since July 4. He didn’t return after the game had been halted for 88 minutes by rain, but Roger McDowell pitched four innings of one-hit ball to finish what Gooden had started. The Expos are still the only team in the National League with an edge on the Mets this season, four games to three. But even that distinction is threatened now. And the Expos, who have lost 12 of their last 16, also saw the Mets widen their lead in the East to 16 ½ games.
The Chicago Cubs bowed to the Philadelphia Phillies, 4–3. Jeff Stone hit a home run with one out in the 11th inning. He hit a 2–1 pitch off Frank DiPino (1–5) for his fourth homer of the season. DiPino had struck out the four other batters he faced.
The Pittsburgh Pirates blanked the St. Louis Cardinals 4–0. Rick Rhoden pitched a five-hitter to beat St. Louis for the first time since September 13, 1983, and Jim Morrison hit a two-run home run for Pittsburgh. Rhoden (11–6) also hit two doubles, one leading off the three-run third inning against Greg Mathews (6–3). Rhoden, pitching his first shutout of the season and first since September 29, 1984, was in trouble only in the sixth, when he retired Ozzie Smith on a grounder to the mound with runners on first and third and two out.
The Houston Astros topped the San Diego Padres, 6–3. Bob Knepper won his fourth straight decision, allowing just three hits over six and two-thirds innings, and Denny Walling and Kevin Bass each drove in a pair of runs. Knepper (14–7) gave up just one hit — Kevin McReynolds’ two-out infield single in the first inning — through six innings, thus joining Fernando Valenzuela of Los Angeles as the only 14-game winners in the National League.
The California Angels nipped the Seattle Mariners, 3–2. Don Sutton gained his 305th victory, and Doug DeCinces and George Hendrick hit fourth-inning homers for California. Sutton (10–7) allowed seven hits over seven innings as he won for the eighth time in 10 decisions. He struck out six and walked two before Donnie Moore came in to pitch the final two innings for his 13th save. Mark Langston (9–8) pitched a six-hitter, struck out seven and walked four. He retired 10 of the first 11 batters but ran into trouble in the fourth.
Vida Blue struggled to a pitching victory with major relief help from Juan Berenguer and Scotit Garrelts as the San Francisco Giants defeated the Atlanta Braves, 3–1, tonight. The Braves’ Rick Mahler, 10–11, suffered a sixth consecutive loss. Blue, 8–6, allowed seven hits, walked three batters and threw two wild pitches in 6 ⅓ innings. Through six innings, the left-hander had a 2–0 lead and the Braves left nine men on base. Ken Griffey made the score 2–1 with a homer, his sixth, with one out in the seventh and Dale Murphy followed with a triple.
The Baltimore Orioles downed the Toronto Blue Jays, 7–3. Jim Traber and Tom Dodd, both rookies, each hit a home run and drove in two runs, and Juan Beniquez went 3 for 4 with two RBIs to lead Baltimore. Traber now has six homers and 17 RBIs since being called up from Rochester on July 18, when Eddie Murray was placed on the disabled list with an hamstring injury.
Kansas City Royals 3, Boston Red Sox 5
Detroit Tigers 5, Chicago White Sox 4
New York Yankees 3, Cleveland Indians 4
New York Yankees 5, Cleveland Indians 3
Cincinnati Reds 5, Los Angeles Dodgers 9
Texas Rangers 7, Milwaukee Brewers 2
Texas Rangers 8, Milwaukee Brewers 6
Oakland Athletics 1, Minnesota Twins 10
Montreal Expos 1, New York Mets 3
Chicago Cubs 3, Philadelphia Phillies 4
St. Louis Cardinals 0, Pittsburgh Pirates 4
Houston Astros 6, San Diego Padres 3
California Angels 3, Seattle Mariners 2
Atlanta Braves 1, San Francisco Giants 3
Baltimore Orioles 7, Toronto Blue Jays 3
Stock prices drifted aimlessly for most of yesterday’s session before ending lower as investors, fearful of the sharp drops on three of the last four Mondays, decided not to carry large stock portfolios into the weekend. Virtually ignored in the light trading were Government reports that the index of leading indicators rose three-tenths of 1 percent while unemployment fell. Analysts said the results were as expected. The Dow Jones industrial average, under pressure of late, slid another 11.67 points yesterday, to 1,763.64, and ended the week down 46.40.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1763.64 (-11.67)
Born:
Elena Vesnina, Russian tennis player (Olympics, gold medal, women’s doubles, 2016; silver medal, mixed doubles, 2020; 2013 French Open, 2014 US Open, and 2017 Wimbledon Championships in women’s doubles), in Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union.
Mike Wallace, NFL wide receiver (Pro Bowl, 2011; Pittsburgh Steelers, Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings, Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles), in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Anton Strålman, Swedish NHL defenseman (Toronto Maple Leafs, Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, Arizona Coyotes, Boston Bruins), in Tibro, Sweden.
Jon Rheault, NHL right wing (Florida Panthers), in Arlington, Texas.
History Diaries 