The White House chief of staff said today that the Reagan Administration would resist any effort by the Soviet Union to limit discussions to arms control at a meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. In a speech to a Santa Barbara civic group, the chief of staff, Donald T. Regan, said “fruitful talks over the next few months with the Soviets can lead to a productive summit in the late fall.” But, interjecting a note of caution as he responded to questions later, he said it would be hard to predict what the outcome of such a meeting between President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev would be, with the Russians committed to a “single issue” agenda focusing on arms controls and with the United States wanting to expand the topics of discussion. “We want to talk about arms control, but not exclusively, because we also want to talk about regional issues,” Mr. Regan said. “We mean, what is the Soviet Union doing in Afghanistan if they are such peace lovers? What are they doing in Afghanistan and when are they going to get out?” Mr. Regan also said the Administration wanted to discuss why the Russians were “destabilizing” the African continent through involvement in Angola, to discuss the Soviet support of the Nicaraguan Government and to discuss human rights abuses, particularly the Soviet refusal to allow the emigration of Soviet Jews.
Mr. Regan’s comment came shortly after the White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, said the question of whether there is a United States-Soviet summit meeting this year — as well as an arms control agreement — rests largely in the hands of the Soviet Union. “The ball in arranging a timetable for a summit is in the Soviet court,” Mr. Speakes said, in a comment that was designed to reflect Administration impatience with the pace of United States-Soviet diplomacy and recent publicity efforts by the Soviet Union. Mr. Regan’s comments, and those by Mr. Speakes, at a briefing in Santa Barbara, seemed aimed at placing Moscow on the defensive after two days in which Soviet proposals and statements have dominated news reports. Mr. Regan spoke before the Channel City Club in Santa Barbara, the same civic group that served as the forum for a major speech on United States-Soviet relations last August by Robert C. McFarlane, then the President’s national security adviser.
The Chernobyl disaster produced far more radioactive contamination that covered a much wider area than previously indicated, according to a Soviet report on the accident. And, it says, residents who were evacuated around the power plant may not be able to return for as long as four years. The 382-page report, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, said radiation in some areas remained at higher levels than had been disclosed and might rise as particles drift around. It said topsoil was being scraped up in parts of the evacuation zone of 1,000 square miles and was being hauled off for burial as nuclear waste. And it raised the possibility of 6,500 premature deaths in the Soviet Union and of continuing contamination of fish, vegetation and housing up to dozens of miles from the plant.
The Chernobyl disaster did serious harm to the Soviet nuclear power program and has forced a review of the location and size of atomic generating plants, a Government official said today. Some nuclear stations are near big cities, and a four-reactor station similar to the Chernobyl plant is situated not far from Leningrad. Nuclear central steam plants are under construction in the suburbs of other cities. The official, Andronik M. Petrosyants, who is chairman of the State Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, said at a news conference that the Chernobyl accident “hurt the nuclear program badly.”
Chinese and Soviet border guards exchanged fire along the western sector of their frontier in July, and one Chinese guard was killed and another was injured, a Japanese newspaper reported. The Yomiuri Shimbun, in a dispatch from Peking, quoted an unidentified source as disclosing the July 12 clash in Xinjiang province. Minor clashes have often occurred along the tense border between the two Communist giants. In late July, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in a speech in Vladivostok, called for better relations between Moscow and Peking.
Father Charles Curran, the U.S. theologian censured for his dissenting views on such issues as abortion and divorce, could face further punishment if he continues to defy the church, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro said. Curran, who has been stripped of his right to teach Roman Catholic theology, also could lose the right to perform his duties as a priest, Navarro warned. “The best thing for him to do now is to reflect and, hopefully, change his mind,” he said. Curran, told of Navarro’s comments, said that the question of revocation of his priestly standing “has never been raised. That would be totally unfair… but I still couldn’t change my positions.”
An Irish soldier serving with the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon was killed today by a bomb along a road. Two other soldiers from the Irish contingent were wounded, according to a spokesman for the force, known as Unifil. The incident came less than a week after 19 soldiers of the French contingent were wounded in two days of clashes with Shiite militiamen of the Amal movement near the port of Tyre. Three militiamen were killed. It was not immediately known if the Unifil soldiers were the intended target in the bombing today. Moslem guerrillas have been active against the Israelis and their Christian militia allies in southern Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres says he expects to meet President Hosni Mubarak next month in Egypt. The Egyptian Government offered no official comment on Mr. Peres’s statement. The meeting would be the first conference of leaders of the two countries in five years. Speaking on Israeli television Wednesday night, Mr. Peres said he expected the meeting to follow the formal signing of an arbitration agreement between the two countries over Taba, a border area that both Israel and Egypt claim.
Three Lebanese suspected of planning terrorist bomb attacks in West Berlin have been arrested and a fourth is being sought, police announced. Officers said the four men entered the city from East Berlin. The suspected targets were not identified, but the Bild newspaper, which has excellent security sources, said the Arabs planned to attack American targets in West Berlin. There have been no terrorist attacks on Americans in Berlin since the April 5 discotheque bombing that killed two U.S. soldiers. Washington blamed Libya for that attack and bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in retaliation.
Iranian authorities announced that they have broken up two “terrorist networks” blamed for bombings that have killed 38 people and wounded more than 250 this year. Mohammed Reyshahri, Iranian information minister, said those arrested include monarchists seeking to restore the dynasty of the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and members of the Moujahedeen, which hopes to overthrow the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He said the suspects were involved in all seven major explosions reported in Tehran and Qom since January.
Mass arrests and an extensive army presence throughout southeastern Pakistan appeared today to have suppressed the widespread anti-Government rioting earlier this week and thrown the political opposition into some disarray. After three days of relative quiet in this port city and in the interior of Sind Province, supporters of President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo spoke with increasing confidence that the drive to overthrow the Pakistani Government had been halted. Mr. Junejo made no public statements, and General Zia has been out of the country on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. But their associates asserted that the opposition alliance known as the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy had failed in its efforts.
The mayor of a town in northern Mexico and two other people have asked for political asylum in the United States, a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service official in El Paso said. He said that Mayor Gustavo Villareal, of Hidalgo del Parral, a member of the opposition National Action Party, and the other two men indicated they were seeking asylum because they had taken part in opposition demonstrations against alleged fraud in the July 6 elections in the state of Chihuahua.
An anti-cocaine effort in Bolivia has proved so successful that American and Bolivian officials want to keep American troops and helicopters there beyond the 60 days originally planned. Officials of both Governments said in interviews they wanted the American presence to continue until Bolivian drug officials could run their own program of raids to destroy cocaine laboratories.
Bolivia’s powerful leftist labor federation launched a 48-hour general strike to protest government economic policies and to demand the removal of U.S. soldiers who have been providing support for police raids on cocaine producers. Rail and domestic air services were shut down, along with mines and many factories, but business activity remained normal in the capital of La Paz. Union representatives assailed the country’s year-old conservative government, which has laid off thousands of workers, reorganized state companies and frozen public employee wages. It also intends to close unprofitable tin mines, a move that would throw 9,000 miners out of work.
A suspect in the death of Dian Fossey is an American wildlife researcher, a Rwandan Government publication said. Ms. Fossey, a naturalist and expert on gorillas, was found slain last December 27 at her remote research camp in Rwanda. The publication said Wayne R. McGuire, her research assistant, “is suspected of being implicated in the murder.”
In Cameroon, 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock died when toxic gas, an invisible bubble of carbon dioxide, erupted from a volcano under Lake Nyos. The limnic eruption triggered the sudden release of about 100,000–300,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). The gas cloud initially rose at nearly 100 km/h (62 mph; 28 m/s) and then, being heavier than air, descended onto nearby villages, suffocating people and livestock within 25 km (16 miles) of the lake. Since carbon dioxide is 50% more dense than air, the cloud hugged the ground and moved down the valleys, where there were various villages. The mass was about 50 meters (160 ft) thick, and travelled downward at 20–50 kilometers per hour (12–31 mph; 5.6–13.9 m/s). For roughly 23 kilometers (14 mi), the gas cloud was concentrated enough to suffocate many people in their sleep in the villages of Nyos, Kam, Cha, and Subum. About 4,000 inhabitants fled the area, and many of these developed respiratory problems, lesions, and paralysis as a result of the gas cloud.
Bishop Desmond M. Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize and a leading opponent of South Africa’s white authorities, returned to Johannesburg from an overseas tour today to face a barrage of taunts from conservative whites accusing him of treason because of his attitude to international sanctions. “I have said nothing new,” Bishop Tutu, who is soon to be installed as Archbishop of Cape Town, told reporters today at Jan Smuts Airport here. “What have I said that I have not said in South Africa?” In the nation’s newest state of emergency, the second in a year, it is an offense to advocate economic sanctions against South Africa.
The tax revision bill approved by House-Senate conferees eases a burden on low-income families that has grown increasingly heavy on them over the last decade, according to experts. Both liberal and conservative groups have hailed a provision dropping 6 million low-income households from the tax rolls.
President Reagan places a call to Dave Broder about perceived errors in reporting in his recent column about the President’s fiscal policies.
Amid tears and embraces, glassy stares and wrenching sobs, postal workers returned to their jobs here this morning, a day after a co-worker unleashed a murderous 10-minute barrage that killed 14 people. Police investigators said Patrick Henry Sherrill, a 44-year-old letter carrier, cooked himself scrambled eggs for breakfast and cleaned the dishes Wednesday before driving to work and methodically gunning down workers at the five-year-old brick postal center here. He then killed himself. Conflicts on Labor Relations The police said the supervisor who had criticized Mr. Sherrill the day before over his performance, Bill Bland, was not at work at the time of the shootings because he had overslept. Another supervisor who was with Mr. Bland in his meeting with Mr. Sherrill was among the dead, the police said.
Old coaches recalled the gunman as an earnest, quiet young football player who was “a little bit shy.” Former teammates remembered Patrick H. Sherrill as a strong, stocky youth who tried hard, made high school teams and won letters in three sports, but who never reached star quality. A friend recalled the eyes of “a lonely, abandoned child” in a smiling face. “Nobody could have been as shocked as I was at what happened,” said Don Roberts, now of Houston, who was the quarterback on Mr. Sherrill’s old team at Harding High School here.
More than anything else, the nation’s postmasters say, the shootings at an Oklahoma post office underscore their longstanding complaints about bureaucratic obstacles to managing postal workers and dismissing the unfit. “Postmasters need to be given more authority in the operation of their offices,” said Cecil L. Stripling Jr., postmaster of Georgetown, Tex., with 49 workers. “The employees need to know there is an authority they need to obey.” These sentiments were echoed often as the first of 3,200 postmasters began to arrive here for the 82d annual convention of the National Association of Postmasters of the United States, a day after a disgruntled postal employee killed 14 fellow workers in Edmond, Oklahoma. The meeting is to begin Sunday.
A judge who reportedly was the intended target of a pipe bomb returned to work under guard in Fargo, North Dakota, and authorities said two politically sensitive trials he had presided over may have motivated someone to seek revenge. A bomb was defused at the Federal Building on Wednesday, and a similar bomb exploded Monday at the Fargo Post Office, injuring four workers. U.S. District Judge Paul Benson, 68, in 1977 presided over the trial of Indian activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of slaying two FBI agents. The second trial involved the 1983 shooting deaths of two U.S. marshals by tax protesters.
Federal law-enforcement officials are trying to determine whether an Oregon Congressman promoted research by a retired Air Force colonel whose handmade antitank cannon accidentally discharged this week, injuring four people. Reagan Administration officials said today that investigators wanted to know if the lawmaker, Representative Denny Smith, a Republican, got in touch with the Pentagon or intelligence agencies to help promote the colonel’s design for the powerful weapon. However, a Federal law-enforcement official who asked not to be named cautioned that the legislator was not the focus of the investigation, which is being led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The official noted that “there isn’t necessarily anything wrong” if Mr. Smith aided the retired colonel, Robert G. Dilger of Xenia, Ohio.
Almost all of Houston’s garbage collectors who staged a three-day wildcat strike returned to work today, including some who had been dismissed for refusing to work, officials said. The dismissed workers were told to go home, said Joanne Adams, a spokesman for Mayor Kathy Whitmire. “They’re no longer employed by the City of Houston,” she said. The Mayor dismissed 91 workers after they obeyed her orders earlier this week to return to work but then refused to work, Ms. Adams said. Almost all workers reported for duty today, she said, and all of the city’s 132 garbage trucks were on the streets. Hundreds of city garbage workers went on strike Monday to protest working conditions, low pay and layoffs affecting more than 200 workers.
More Haitians than ever are crowding into battered sailboats and attempting to enter the United States illegally, authorities said. Since the overthrow of President Jean-Claude Duvalier last February, Coast Guard cutters have stopped 3,011 Haitians from reaching U.S. soil, almost double the number interdicted during the first six months of last year. The continued migration supports the contention that most of the Haitians are economic-not political-refugees, authorities said. The transitional government that succeeded Duvalier has been criticized as being ineffective in boosting the economy and providing jobs.
Janice Hart, a supporter of radical politician Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., was found guilty by a jury in Skokie, Illinois, of disrupting an archbishop’s speech by presenting him with a piece of raw liver. Hart, who won the Democratic nomination for Illinois secretary of state, was fined $500, the maximum for the misdemeanor conviction. She said she offered the liver to Roman Catholic Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee during his speech last year at a synagogue in Glencoe, Ill., to protest his support of the International Monetary Fund.
A drive to raise $24 million for a memorial to honor the seven crew members of the shuttle Challenger and three Apollo astronauts killed in a launch pad fire in 1967 was launched at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Rep. Bill Nelson (D-Florida), who flew aboard the shuttle Columbia last January, spoke to about 200 guests at Spaceport USA, the future site of the memorial, to officially start the fund-raising effort. Organizers hope to complete the memorial by Jan. 28, 1989, the third anniversary of the Challenger disaster.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry ruled that the labor dispute at USX Corp. is a lockout rather than a strike, which will allow at least 6,200 steelworkers in the state to collect unemployment benefits. The agency said it had determined that USX, formerly U.S. Steel, barred the employees from continuing to work when their contract expired on July 31.
Robert Delaney, leader of a dissident group in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, defeated the union’s president, John F. Sytsma, today in an election marked by bitterness and charges of fraud. Mr. Delaney had 371 votes to 301 for Mr. Sytsma. In a brief acceptance speech, Mr. Delaney told delegates to the union’s convention here, “I’m sorry if anyone was hurt,” an allusion to the rough-and-tumble politicking that has characterized the convention.
The Federal Government today charged a Washington postal worker with possession of bonds worth $200,000 that were taken from a registered, sealed Postal Service pouch. John Dominguez, an Assistant United States Attorney, asked a Federal Magistrate to hold the man, Louis P. Scott Jr., a postal worker for 27 years, in jail on a $2.3 million bond because the pouch also contained that much in other valuables that he said had not been recovered.
The latest gambling boom town is Laughlin, Nevada, 80 miles southeast of Las Vegas and just across the Colorado River from Arizona. The new casino town has exploded from a population of fewer than 100 two years ago to 3,000 today. For a visitor driving through the blistering desert, the town of Laughlin seems an unlikely mirage: a cluster of a half-dozen casinos billowing in the heat, miles and miles from nowhere. Yet people are finding their way to Laughlin — on a good weekend more than 50,000 visitors elbow each other for 1,600 hotel rooms — making the town the hottest new gambling spot in the nation, in more than temperature. As people come, so do companies, and some of the best-known gambling concerns are laying their chips in the dust here, planning glamorous properties in the hope that the boom will continue.
A Russian husband-and-wife acrobat team who defected from the Moscow Circus said Wednesday that they would join a Miami circus and tour the country as an independent act.
A storm dumped up to half an inch of rain over fire-blackened regions of the West, aiding firefighters’ efforts to snuff the last hotspots from blazes that charred almost 738,000 acres in nine states. “We got rain on all of the fires from northeast Oregon to central Idaho,” said Dave Damron of the Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Ida. Firefighters had been expecting more lightning.
Stephen Schwartz and Charles Strouse’s musical “Rags” opens at the Mark Hellinger Theater in NYC, runs for 4 performances, and receives 6 Tony Award nominations.
Major League Baseball:
The Atlanta Braves defeated the Chicago Cubs, 5–2. Dale Murphy hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the eighth inning and Jim Acker threw a six-hitter over seven and one-third innings to lead Atlanta to its fourth consecutive victory. Murphy’s 23rd homer broke a 2–2 tie and was contested by the Cubs, who claimed the ball did not clear the left-field fence. But Fred Brocklander, the second-base umpire, ruled the ball landed above the basket that sits atop the wall and was a homer.
The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 9–4. Eric Davis drove in four runs with two homers, and Buddy Bell and Nick Esasky added bases-empty shots to power Cincinnati. Bell’s fifth-inning homer, his seventh in his last eight games, staked Chris Welsh to a 5–0 lead. Welsh (5–4) retired the first 13 batters and didn’t allow a hit until Jose Oquendo led off the sixth with a single.
Newly acquired shortstop Spike Owen ties the 20th century Major League record by scoring 6 runs in Boston’s 24–5 thrashing of Cleveland. It is the most runs ever allowed by Cleveland. Rookie blue chipper Greg Swindell takes the loss in his Major League debut, pitching after just three appearances in the minors. Tony Armas has a grand slam, the first of two homers, in the 12-run 6th, and Bill Buckner collects 5 hits. Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd (12–9) allowed eight hits in seven innings to gain his first victory since July 8 as the Red Sox scored the most runs by an American League team this season. Boyd had lost all three of his starts since returning from his suspension on August 1.
The California Angels topped the Detroit Tigers, 6–1. Mike Witt won his sixth straight decision with a five-hitter for eight innings and Dick Schofield’s triple keyed a three-run second inning. Witt (15–7) walked three and struck out six. Donnie Moore pitched the ninth.
The Texas Rangers bowed to the Kansas City Royals, 4–3. Frank White and Steve Balboni each homered and Charlie Leibrandt became the first Kansas City pitcher to win 10 games this season. White hit a 435-foot home run to left-center leading off the fifth inning, snapping a 3–3 tie.
Steve Garvey hit a three-run homer and Dave Dravecky (9–10) and Gene Walter combined for a five-hit shutout as San Diego sent Montreal to its fifth straight defeat. Terry Kennedy also hit a homer as San Diego completed a three-game series sweep, as the Padres blanked the Montreal Expos, 6–0.
The San Francisco Giants nipped the Philadelphia Phillies, 7–6. Luis Quinones hit a two-run single and Candy Maldonado added a two-run double in a five-run eighth inning, rallying San Francisco from a five-run deficit and on to victory. The Giants ended a four-game losing streak and halted a four-game winning streak for Philadelphia. The Philadelphia starter, Kevin Gross, had allowed only four hits and had a 6–2 lead entering the eighth. But San Francisco loaded the bases on singles by Chris Brown and Robbie Thompson and a walk to Mike Aldrete, chasing Gross.
The Chicago White Sox edged the Toronto Blue Jays, 4–3. Carlton Fisk slammed a pinch-hit three-homer in the seventh inning and Ozzie Guillen singled in the winning run in the ninth for Chicago. Jerry Hairston led off the ninth with a double off Jimmy Key (11–9), bringing on Mark Eichhorn to pitch. Russ Morman sacrificed before Guillen singled to center.
The scheduled game between the Seattle Mariners and the Yankees at New York was postponed due to rain. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on August 30.
The scheduled doubleheader between the Oakland A’s and the Orioles at Baltimore was postponed due to rain. The games will be made up as part of a doubleheader on August 28 and August 29.
Atlanta Braves 5, Chicago Cubs 2
St. Louis Cardinals 4, Cincinnati Reds 9
Boston Red Sox 24, Cleveland Indians 5
California Angels 6, Detroit Tigers 1
Texas Rangers 3, Kansas City Royals 4
Montreal Expos 0, San Diego Padres 6
Philadelphia Phillies 6, San Francisco Giants 7
Chicago White Sox 4, Toronto Blue Jays 3
Stock prices ended narrowly mixed yesterday in the wake of the Federal Reserve Board’s largely-expected discount rate cut. While blue-chip issues slipped a bit, the underlying market moved strongly ahead. The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 0.14, to 1,881.19, as volume contracted to 135.2 million shares, from 156.6 million on Wednesday.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1881.19 (-0.14)
Born:
Usain Bolt, Jamaican sprinter (Olympic gold 100m/200m, 2008, 2012, 2016), in Sherwood Content, Jamaica.
Erik Hamren, MLB pitcher (San Diego Padres), in Newport Beach, California.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thai businesswoman and politician, Prime Minister of Thailand (2024-), in Bangkok, Thailand.
History Diaries 