The Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union last April occurred when workers running a test shut off key emergency equipment, then ignored warnings of problems, according to a report prepared by Soviet officials. The 382-page report, to be publicly presented at an international symposium in Vienna on August 25, said human error was the primary cause of the disaster, which killed at least 30 people and was the worst commercial nuclear accident in history. Safety violations by operators were noted. Copies of the report, in Russian, were presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on Thursday and distributed to the embassies of foreign nations there over the last two days. Translated details were obtained by The New York Times today from Asahi Shimbun, the Japanese daily, and discussed with American nuclear experts, who added their own explanations.
The Soviet Union has begun construction of two new large early-warning radars, Administration officials said today. The Soviet Union is in the process of strengthening its radar coverage, and the two new radars appear to be another step in this process. Officials did not say when the radars were first discovered by American intelligence, but said their construction had been anticipated.
Ten Turkish warplanes crossed into Iraq today and bombed three hideouts sheltering about 100 Kurdish rebels, Prime Minister Turgut Ozal said. He said Iraq was told beforehand The raid was in retaliation for a Kurdish ambush of an army truck Tuesday in Hakkari Province in Turkey, near the Iraqi and Iranian borders. Twelve soldiers were killed. Mr. Ozal said the mission today, by F-4 Phantom jets, took 15 minutes. Hours earlier, the Government issued a decree authorizing the general staff to pursue rebels into neighboring countries with the neighboring country’s consent.
Scattered anti-Government protests and clashes with the police erupted in Karachi and parts of rural southern Pakistan today. The reports of new unrest came as opposition leaders vowed to mount a major agitation demanding the release of the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and hundreds of others arrested this week. Spokesmen for Miss Bhutto’s organization, the Pakistan People’s Party, said their workers had attacked a police station in one rural town and released three prisoners, and that in another town supporters had ransacked a bank and Government offices. The police did not confirm the reports.
“Hidden conspirators” behind the takeover last month of the Manila Hotel remain active, and there are “high risks” of another, perhaps more serious, incident when President Corazon C. Aquino leaves this month for Indonesia and next month for the United States, according to the findings of a Government investigation. The confidential report by a presidential commission, submitted to Mrs. Aquino in a two-hour meeting Thursday, noted a breakdown in intelligence, which it said failed to forecast the incident July 6 and remained unable to identify its real leaders. A source close to the investigation said he was convinced that the “real brains” of the incident was former President Ferdinand E. Marcos, who he said is “pulling the strings” from his exile in Honolulu. The four-page report itself, however, lists “linkage to F. M.,” the initials of Mr. Marcos, as one of the remaining “unknowns” of the investigation, which is continuing under the leadership of Alfredo Bengzon, the Minister of Health.
Sri Lankan castaways rescued off Newfoundland four days ago embarked on their journey to Canada in a tramp freighter from northern Germany on July 28, the Hamburg police said. The 155 refugees, members of a Sri Lankan minority called Tamils, at first told the Canadian authorities that they had sailed from Madras, India, on July 6. The Hamburg police chief said the captain-owner of the freighter was believed to have been paid $340,000 by the Tamils.
The United States issued a strong protest to Mexico today over what the White House called “the unprovoked and totally unjustified detention and torture” of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent by the Mexican police this week. The Mexican Government acknowledged today that the agent had been detained for questioning, but it denied he had been mistreated. But Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d said, “There is no question that our agent was badly mistreated, and we’re not going to stand for this kind of conduct.” The White House, in a separate statement, described the detention of the agent, Victor Cortez Jr., by eight Mexican police officers in Guadalajara on Wednesday as “vigilantism” that “causes serious harm to the relationship necessary for our two countries to be able to combat drug trafficking.”
Mexico’s Attorney General has sent a team to the western city of Guadalajara to investigate the case of an American narcotics agent whom the United States says was tortured, a spokesman for President Miguel de la Madrid said today. The spokesman, Manuel Alonso, said the Government had not received a formal United States protest of the purported mistreatment by Jalisco state police on Wednesday of a Drug Enforcement Administration officer, Victor Cortez Jr. Guadalajara is the capital of Jalisco state. Mr. Alonso said the Jalisco state police continued to deny that Mr. Cortez had been tortured.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz visited Haiti briefly today in what he said was an effort to underscore the United States’ support for Haiti’s transition to democracy. Mr. Shultz arrived just over six months after President Jean-Claude Duvalier fled into exile in France aboard a United States Air Force plane, bringing to an end nearly 30 years of Duvalier family dictatorship.
The wreckage of a Honduran military transport plane that was carrying 52 people was found today in eastern Honduras, officials said. The military said there were no survivors. The plane, a Hercules C-130, crashed on Thursday on a flight from Tegucigalpa, the capital, to the military base of Durzuna, 25 miles north of the Nicaraguan border in Gracias a Dios Province, officials said. Ground crews and aircraft had searched hills around the Miskito Indian town of Wampusirpe, 10 miles from Durzuna, for more than 12 hours before finding the crash site, a military spokesman said. A military spokesman said the Hercules C-130 was carrying 52 people, including some civilians, plus heavy military equipment and three tons of food for troops in the Mosquitia region. A United States Embassy spokesman said he did not believe that any Americans were aboard.
The Senate tonight ignored the objections of the Reagan Administration and overwhelmingly approved a set of tough economic sanctions designed to undermine the system of racial separation in South Africa. The vote was 84 to 14, with 37 Republicans and all 47 Democrats combining to form a broad, bipartisan majority for the measure. New American investment in South African companies would be barred by the bill, and a wide range of business relationships would be tightly restricted. Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, assessed the measure this way: “Very clearly we are involved in reshaping foreign policy. This is a very important shift.”
South Africans stepped up protests against the emergency decree. Six hundred political detainees were said to have gone on a hunger strike, but the Government denied the report. On the campuses of English-speaking universities, faculty and students joined in a call for an end to the state of emergency, and in Soweto, thousands of high school students maintained a classroom boycott to protest the military presence there.
After almost 12 hours of tense negotiations, Senator Bob Packwood said early today that he and Representative Dan Rostenkowski had reached agreement in principle on the main elements of a comprehensive tax revision bill. All of the House and Senate conferees are to meet later today to review and possibly approve the agreement. Senator Packwood said shortly after 1 AM that he and Mr. Rostenkowski had overcome all major problems but might continue to refine details through the night. Mr. Packwood declined to specify any details of the compromise. The two lawmakers had been seeking a solution to the latest obstacle in the way of tax revision legislation: the need to come up with $17 billion more than they had planned. The other conferees working on the bill, 10 senators and 10 representatives, had been told to stay in Washington at least through today to complete the work should Senator Packwood and Representative Rostenkowski, their chairmen, reach an agreement.
President Reagan has ordered the space agency to yield its commercial launching business to private industry and to build a fourth space shuttle to replace the lost Challenger, the White House announced today. The decision foreshadowed a major change in the role of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which has used its shuttle fleet to carry a mixture of military, scientific and commercial satellites. “NASA will no longer be in the business of launching private satellites,” Mr. Reagan said in a statement. Instead, the space agency will concentrate on pioneering the development of new technology, and its shuttles will carry aloft satellites that are important to national security, foreign policy, and, “even more,” the exploration of space and development of new space capabilities. “NASA will keep America on the leading edge of change,” Mr. Reagan said. “The private sector will take over from there.”
With President Reagan’s decision to build an orbiter to replace the destroyed Challenger, the space agency appears to have won a major victory as it struggles to recover from the largest disaster in the history of space exploration. But officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and outside experts agree that the victory came at a very high price. Because the Administration’s new policy forces the agency to give up commercial ventures and pay for a good part of the new orbiter, NASA’s role in the nation’s space program will be significantly diminished, they say. Experts expect that the agency will almost certainly have to forgo several of the scientific missions that, along with launching satellites and conducting experiments for industry, justified the construction of the shuttle in the first place.
President Reagan participates in a briefing for State Chairmen to the White House Conference on Small Business.
President Reagan participates in a taping session for his radio address to the Nation on defense funding.
Congress struggled to clear the way for its three-week summer recess early today after the Democratic-controlled House approved a 1987 military programs bill Friday that rejects Reagan Administration policies on arms control, new chemical weapons and a space-based defense against missiles. After two weeks of wearying late-night sessions, a fight over an amendment that would provide a new automatic spending-cut mechanism for the budget-balancing law stalled approval of a short-term increase in the debt ceiling. The increase had to be approved to avoid a government default on interest payments and a delay of other payments during the Congressional recess. The short-term extension will accommodate Government borrowing through September 30.
The Senate has passed and sent to President Reagan for his approval a bill banning armor-piercing bullets. The bill, which was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate late Wednesday night, had been shepherded through Congress by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and Representative Mario Biaggi of the Bronx, both Democrats.
Departure and landing delays are plaguing nearly a third more flights at the nation’s busiest airports so far this year than last, the Federal Aviation Administration reported today. The figures show the airports with the most delays are in Newark, New York and Boston. About 22 metropolitan airports had 199,746 delayed flights from January through July, an increase of 31 percent over the 152,972 delays in the same seven months last year, according to the aviation agency.
An amendment to block the Navy on its plan to build new ports around the country was withdrawn by the plan’s opponents in the House. The decision to withdraw the amendment that would have blocked the $54.5 million Navy proposal was seen as a tactical move to avoid a possible defeat and to bolster the efforts of opponents in House-Senate conferences on military bills in September.
Doctors said today that a premature baby boy weighing 1 pound, 1 ½ ounces who was born Thursday to a brain-dead woman had little chance of survival. David Hadden, who says he is the baby’s father, won a court order to keep the woman on life-support systems over the objections of her husband. Mr. Hadden says he wants custody of the child. The baby was delivered three months prematurely after his heartbeat dropped to a critical level. About two hours later, life-support systems were disconnected for his mother, 25-year-old Donna Piazzi. “I’m going to try, as far as I know, to get custody of him,” Mr. Hadden said. His assertion of paternity has not been disputed by Mrs. Piazzi’s husband, Robert. Mrs. Piazzi was taken unconscious to Augusta’s University Hospital on June 27, suffering from a drug overdose.
The Alabama Democratic Party ruled Bill Baxley, the Lieutenant Governor, and their nominee for Governor, the winner of the party’s runoff election in June. He trailed by more than 8,000 votes in the runoff against State Attorney General Charles Graddick. The panel said Mr. Graddick’s victory was the result of illegal ballots cast by Republicans. A special five-member panel of the party’s executive committee said that Lieutenant Governor Bill Baxley had received the majority of legal votes cast in the runoff and declared him the party’s nominee to succeed Governor George C. Wallace, who is retiring. In making its decision, based on evidence presented in four days of hearings this week, the panel agreed with the findings of a three-judge Federal court panel in Montgomery. Two weeks ago the court stripped Charles Graddick, the State Attorney General, of his victory in the June 24 runoff with Mr. Baxley. The judges said that Mr. Graddick had violated Federal voting law and abused his office by encouraging Republicans to vote illegally for him.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has reached an agreement with three engineers who said they had been harassed for disclosing safety problems, a spokesman for the Federal utility said Thursday. The engineers, members of the utility’s nuclear safety review staff, said they had been denied promotions and otherwise treated harshly because of their stand on nuclear safety at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant. As part of the settlement, T.V.A. agreed to give the engineers new jobs. One of the engineers will receive an undetermined amount of back pay, the utility’s spokesman said. The authority will also pay the engineers’ lawyers fees. In exchange, the three have agreed to drop their claims against the utility.
The state of Oregon reached a settlement today that will establish a fund of up to $5 million to compensate victims of criminal acts by organizations set up by followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Oregon’s Attorney General, Dave Frohnmayer, said the settlement of the state’s racketeering lawsuit was reached with attorneys for Rajneeshee organizations. The commune was abandoned, except for a few caretakers, when Mr. Rajneesh left the United States last year after pleading guilty to immigration violations.
A health official retracted testimony on re-using kidney dialysis devices, saying he was inaccurate and misleading when he told a Senate panel that there was no evidence of a health hazard in the re-use of the devices. Dr. John E. Marshall, director of the National Center for Health Services Research and Technology Assessment, said he had “uncovered serious omissions and inaccuracies in the testimony” he and other health officials gave last March.
For the second time this week the Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers to be alert for dairy products contaminated with a potentially dangerous bacteria. The agency warned consumers in 10 states, including New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, on Thursday that a French cheese might contain Listeria monocytogenes bacteria. The cheese, Morbier Rippoz, was produced by a French company, Unicopa, and imported by Crystal Food Import of East Boston, Mass., which issued a recall, the food agency said.
Wildfires touched off by lightning that destroyed millions of dollars of dry timber and rangeland across the West dwindled yesterday to 44,000 acres in Oregon and Idaho. Firefighters said they had gained control over blazes that once numbered in the hundreds in Nevada, Montana, Washington and California. They said the only fires still unchecked were on 40,000 acres in Oregon and 4,000 in Idaho.
Major League Baseball:
Bob Knepper pitched a five-hitter for his fifth shutout of the season and Denny Walling hit a solo homer and drove in another run with a ground out as the Houston Astros posted a 3–0 victory over the Atlanta Braves Friday. Knepper, 15–8, struck out five and walked two en route to the shutout that gave him the major league lead. His 15th victory tied him with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela for the National League lead and his eight complete games rank him third.
Ed Romero opened an eight-run fifth inning with a walk and capped the rally with his first homer in nearly two years as Boston defeated Detroit, 8–5. Roger Clemens earned his 18th victory for the Red Sox. Clemens, who had failed in three previous tries for his 18th victory, struggled for his first triumph since July 25. The right-hander, who is now 18–4 after a 14–0 start, allowed 10 hits in seven and two-thirds innings, including a two-run homer by Darrell Evans. Clemens had six strikeouts to raise his American League-leading total to 180.
Reggie Jackson hit a three-run homer in the first inning, the 541st of his career, for the California Angels as they downed the Oakland A’s, 6–4. Jackson’s 11th homer of the season, but only his fourth since May 14 and first in 33 home games, came off Jose Rijo, 5–9, after a single by Wally Joyner and a walk to Brian Downing. Mickey Tettleton cut California’s lead to 3–1 in the third with his fourth homer of the year off John Candelaria, 6–1, who allowed only one other hit, Carney Lansford’s infield single, in five innings. Joyner’s double and Downing’s RBI single made it 4–1 in the third. The Angels added a fifth-inning unearned run when Joyner’s sacrifice scored Gary Pettis, who had walked and stole second base before taking third on Tettleton’s passed ball. Oakland’s Jose Canseco, the American League RBI leader, extended his hitless streak to 0-for-18 with an 0-for-4 night, including three strikeouts.
George Foster was signed by the Chicago White Sox today, then made his American League debut a rousing success tonight by hitting a home run against the Milwaukee Brewers in a 4–3 loss. Foster, released by the Mets last week, flied out in his first time at bat but hit a first-pitch homer when he led off the fourth inning. He also singled in the sixth.
Bip Roberts and Jerry Royster hit solo homers to support Eric Show’s four-hit pitching as the San Diego Padres beat the Cincinnati Reds for a double-header split, winning 7–1 after dropping the first game, 7–2. Buddy Bell drove in four runs with a pair of homers in the opener.
Mel Hall and Cory Snyder hit consecutive run-scoring singles off Baltimore relief ace Don Aase in the bottom of the eighth inning to lead the Cleveland Indians to a 3–2 victory over the visiting Baltimore Orioles.
When Lou Piniella approached pitcher Brian Fisher in the seventh inning tonight with the tying run on third base and gave him the option to stay in the game or leave, Fisher responded: “I have nothing. Take me out.” His decision helped the Yankees beat the Royals, 7–4. Dave Righetti replaced Fisher and struck out Steve Balboni to preserve a one-run lead and in the following inning the Yankees, with two more runs, tucked this one away. “I learned my lesson earlier in the year,” said Fisher. “I wouldn’t come out. No way. But I’m not the only pitcher there is on this team.” Righetti picked up his 28th save
Tim Burke pitched five scoreless innings in his first major-league start and Luis Rivera hit a pair of doubles and drove in three runs to lead the Montreal Expos to a 5–1 victory and a double-header sweep. Tim Wallach hit a two-run homer and Vance Law had three hits, including a pair of doubles, as the Expos won the first game, 5–2.
At the start, the St. Louis Cardinals fielded a team that had hit a combined total of six home runs so far this year. They had a 36-year-old pitcher on the mound. They were trying to revive after four months of groping for the offense that won the National League pennant last year, and they were doing it against the team with the best record in baseball. But at the close, before another huge crowd of 46,780 fans in Shea Stadium last night, the Cardinals scored three runs on one single in the 10th inning and beat the Mets, 4–2. They didn’t exactly topple the balance of power in the National League’s East, but the Mets now have lost four of their last five games and the Cardinals have won 21 of their last 28. The teams were tied at 1–1 in the 10th, after a bristling match between Bob Forsch and Sid Fernandez, when the Mets took the tumble. Jesse Orosco was pitching his third inning in relief now, and he opened by walking Ozzie Smith. Then he got two outs and walked Terry Pendleton. Then Tito Landrum singled behind second, where Rafael Santana made a sprawling stop in the dirt, and the bases were loaded. The game-winning single, by rookie John Morris, soon followed.
Rookie Mike Maddux allowed six hits in 7 ⅔ innings to win his first major-league game as the Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates in the second game, 3–2. In the opener, Sid Bream’s sacrifice fly with one out in the top of the ninth scored Barry Bonds with the winning run as the Pirates prevailed, 6–5.
Mike Moore pitched a two-hitter for his first shutout of the season and Alvin Davis hit a home run in the ninth inning to lead the Seattle Mariners to a 1–0 win over the Twins. Moore, 7–10, walked two and struck out three, pitching his eighth complete game of the season. Minnesota’s Keith Atherton, 5–6, came on in the ninth in relief of Neal Heaton, who threw a shutout for eight innings. With one out in the ninth, Davis hit his 14th home run to score the only run of the game and help the Mariners break a three-game losing streak. Moore tied Glenn Abbott’s career club record with his 44th career victory.
Will Clark hit two homers and Mike Krukow pitched a seven-hitter Friday night, leading the San Francisco Giants to a 5–1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Krukow, 12–6, struck out a season-high 12 batters and walked two in winning his 100th major league game. He took a five-hit shutout into the ninth and got his seventh complete game despite allowing an RBI single to Mike Scioscia. Dennis Powell, 2–4, had allowed only one Giants runner to reach third through five innings before Clark sparked San Francisco’s four-run outburst in the sixth. Chili Davis led off with an infield hit. Clark, after failing in a sacrifice attempt, then hit Powell’s 2–2 pitch over the fence in right-center. The rookie first baseman has driven in eight runs and scored eight in 11 games since he came off the disabled list after two months. After Clark’s homer, Candy Maldonado singled and stole second. Bob Brenly was intentionally walked before Jose Uribe hit a two-run double. Clark hit his ninth homer of the season to lead off the eighth off Dodgers reliever Joe Beckwith.
George Bell hit a two-run homer and Cliff Johnson added a solo blast, leading the Toronto Blue Jays to a 6–1 win over the Rangers in a game delayed one hour and two minutes by rain. Right-hander Joe Johnson gave up five hits, struck out five and walked two over seven innings to gain his second win against one loss since coming to Toronto from the Atlanta Braves on July 6. John Cerutti and Mark Eichorn pitched the last two innings, with Eichorn picking up his sixth save.
Houston Astros 3, Atlanta Braves 0
Detroit Tigers 5, Boston Red Sox 8
Oakland Athletics 4, California Angels 6
Milwaukee Brewers 4, Chicago White Sox 3
San Diego Padres 2, Cincinnati Reds 7
San Diego Padres 7, Cincinnati Reds 1
Baltimore Orioles 2, Cleveland Indians 3
New York Yankees 7, Kansas City Royals 4
Chicago Cubs 2, Montreal Expos 5
Chicago Cubs 1, Montreal Expos 5
St. Louis Cardinals 4, New York Mets 2
Pittsburgh Pirates 6, Philadelphia Phillies 5
Pittsburgh Pirates 2, Philadelphia Phillies 3
Minnesota Twins 0, Seattle Mariners 1
Los Angeles Dodgers 1, San Francisco Giants 5
Texas Rangers 1, Toronto Blue Jays 6
The stock market, buoyed by the oil stocks, ended broadly higher yesterday for the fifth session in a row. After marking time throughout most of the morning, the Dow Jones industrial average ended 10.69 points higher at 1,855.60 to complete a week that saw the market measure rise 72.98 points. That represents the Dow’s best weekly performance since a 92.91-point gain in the week ended March 14.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1855.6 (+10.69)
Born:
Victor Oreskovich, Canadian NHL defenseman (Florida Panthers, Vancouver Canucks), in Whitby, Ontario, Canada.
Michael Funk, Canadian NHL defenseman (Buffalo Sabres), in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada.
Died:
Richard E. Holz, 74, American composer for brass band (Salvation Army).
History Diaries 