U.S. and Soviet experts conducted secret talks in Geneva on the question of nuclear-risk reduction centers, a joint statement released at the end of the session said. The statement said the two sides agreed to keep the substance of the talks confidential. It did not describe them as negotiations but as “consultations” to consider the question of such centers, which would try to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war. The one-day meeting was the second round of such discussions since they were agreed on at last November’s summit between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
Western scientists said today that the Chernobyl nuclear disaster stemmed largely from reactor design defects that Moscow was warned about nine years ago and that the problems still existed at other Soviet nuclear plants. Soviet scientists acknowledged at a conference here that design flaws had played a role in the catastrophe. Previously, they had attributed the accident almost entirely to human error. Prof. Valery A. Legasov, head of the Soviet delegation, disclosed that other reactors of the Chernobyl type were being shut down for modifications and that this would make them acceptably safe. This assertion was challenged by Western experts. The Western scientists, gathered at an international symposium here, disputed the initial Soviet contention that the April 26 accident was mainly the fault of operators. The experts said the reactor was hard to operate and the blame could not be placed on operators, even though their mistakes began the sequence that led to the disaster. The head of Britain’s power industry said his government had warned Moscow nine years ago that reactors similar to the one destroyed at Chernobyl had “serious defects,” but he said most mistakes were not corrected.
The United States and the Soviet Union will resume talks next week on stopping the spread of chemical weapons, Administration officials said today. The talks are to be held September 4 and 5 in Bern. Officials said the talks were part of an effort to curb the use and production of chemical weapons specifically by countries in the third world. One objective, according to the officials, is to develop an understanding about what chemicals should be subject to export controls. Both the United States and the Soviet Union have chemical weapons, and the United States, with the support of its allies, is intent on developing a new generation of such weapons. A total ban has been the stated long-term goal of both countries, and negotiations have been going on in the Committee on Disarmament in Geneva. However, a total ban is considered a distant objective and, in the meantime, the Soviet Union and the United States are seeking to curb the spread of these weapons much as they have long supported arrangements to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
The Chief of the Soviet General Staff said today that Moscow’s moratorium on nuclear testing was militarily advantageous to the United States but had not disrupted the East-West balance of forces. The Chief of Staff, Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev, told reporters that the yearlong ban on underground nuclear explosions, recently extended by Mikhail S. Gorbachev until next January 1, had hampered weapons development. “We have to face it squarely,” he said.
The Navy will meet a growing Soviet presence in the North Pacific with a “major shift” in operations, involving use of more ships and sailors in the area, said Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. Lehman said San Francisco Bay and Seattle’s Puget Sound will become increasingly important ports and that Alaskan waters will become a staging area for naval exercises, in a speech to the Commonwealth North organization in Anchorage.
Anatoly Sharansky, the former Soviet activist, was reunited today with his mother, in their first meeting since she saw him in prison 19 months ago. Mr. Sharansky’s mother, Ida Milgrom, who is 77 years old, arrived here from Moscow with her other son, Leonid; his wife, Raya, and their two sons.
Thousands of firefighters battled forest fires on the Riviera for a third day in a row today, but the fires, fanned by the stiff Mediterranean wind known as the mistral, leaped across gaps sometimes hundreds of yards wide, complicating efforts to extinguish them. The forest fires, the second wave to hit this area in less than a month, have killed four people, devastated thousands of acres of woodland and burned dozens of houses. “It’s been like ‘Apocalypse Now,’ ” a fireman, Jacques Ellena, told the French news agency. “Flames as high as buildings leap out above our heads and with the wind whirling we have to be everywhere at the same time.”
West Germany in 1983 refused a U.S. request to prosecute a man accused of the World War II murder of a 4-year-old Jewish girl in a Ukrainian town because, among other reasons, the crime did not involve “cruelty,” according to Justice Department documents released in New York by the World Jewish Council. The United States had sought to deport Bohdan Koziy, a member of the Ukrainian police who worked for the Gestapo, to Germany but needed a West German request for his extradition. Bonn characterized the crime as “manslaughter,” for which the statute of limitations had run out. It also argued that the crime did not take place in Germany and was not committed by a German citizen. Koziy fled to Costa Rica in 1985.
The U.S. Navy announced it has signed a $22.7-million contract with Israel for use of 13 Kfir jet fighters. The four-year contract, signed by the Naval Air Systems Command and Israel Aircraft Industries, Ltd., will be paid for the refurbishment of 13 Kfirs and establishment of “an on-site support center” at the Marine Corps Air Station, Yuma, Ariz. The Israeli jets will be used to establish a new adversary squadron for the Marine Corps. Such squadrons are manned by pilots who are schooled in Soviet tactics and who fly simulated combat missions against pilots undergoing fighter training.
Lebanese guerrillas ambushed a patrol of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army militia Sunday, killing one trooper and wounding two, militia sources reported today. They said the attack occurred at Fallous, about 18 miles north of the border with Israel and outside the strip along the border that Israel calls its security zone. The sources said they could not identify the attackers. The mainly Christian militia, trained and equipped by Israel, was formed to help prevent guerrilla infiltration into Israel.
The United States Navy is preparing to search Egyptian waters in the Mediterranean for the wreckage of an Israeli submarine, Defense Department officials said today. Israel has searched in vain for the submarine, the Dakar, a diesel-driven vessel that sank with her crew of 69 in January 1968. Political difficulties between Israel and Egypt have impeded the search. The United States help is being cited as a sign of cordiality among the three nations, whose relations have waxed and waned since the Camp David peace accords were reached during the Carter Administration.
Officials indicated today that Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi was planning terrorist attacks, and the White House warned that it was “prepared to take whatever action is necessary” to thwart the Libyan leader. At the same time, Administration officials said Vernon A. Walters, the United States delegate to the United Nations, had been asked to fly to Europe soon to discuss the Libyan situation with allies. An official said Mr. Walters was planning to press allies “to tighten up political and economic sanctions against Libya.” In Santa Barbara, near the ranch where President Reagan is on a three-week vacation, Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said that “the United States is prepared to take whatever action is necessary to prevent terrorist activities.”
Iran said today that it planned to resume exports of natural gas to the Soviet Union by the end of the year. The exports were broken off after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. The announcement was regarded by American officials as part of a campaign by Iran to put pressure on Iraq, with which it has been at war for six years. The Iranians have been trying to improve relations with European countries, such as France and the Soviet Union, that have been military suppliers to Iraq. This is apparently being done to persuade Iraq that other countries are perceiving Iran as gaining the upper hand in the war and are seeking to make arrangements with Iran. France held economic and political talks with Iran in May.
The Iran-Iraq War and Israel threaten to become key subjects of controversy at the nonaligned movement’s triennial summit in Zimbabwe next week. As delegates poured into Harare for preliminary meetings starting today, hopes for the movement’s efforts to broker peace in the Persian Gulf suffered a setback with Iran’s announcement that it will fight until victory over Iraq.
A Sikh wanted in the assassination of India’s most-decorated military hero was arrested today, the United News of India reported. A man identified by police as Sukhwinder Singh was caught at a guesthouse in the western state of Goa, the agency said, and the 25-year-old suspect was taken to the Goa capital of Panaji “under heavy escort.”
South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan reshuffled his Cabinet, replacing 10 of the 22 ministers, a presidential spokesman said. Foreign Minister Lee Won Kyung was replaced by Choi Kwang Soo, chief of South Korea’s permanent observer mission at the United Nations, and Chung Suk Mo was replaced as home minister by Kim Chong Hoh, member of Parliament from the governing Democratic Justice Party. Prime Minister Lho Shin Yong and Deputy Premier and Economic Planning Minister Kim Mahn Je were among those retained. The spokesman said the Cabinet change would help to create an “historical turning point” in the country’s political development and improve the management of state affairs.
Takako Doi is strongly favored to become the first woman to head a major political party in Japan after only one other candidate entered the race against her for the post of chairman of the Socialist Party. If elected, Doi, 57, Socialist vice chairperson and a former university lecturer in constitutional law, would be in line to become Japan’s first woman prime minister if the Socialists were to win a majority of seats in a parliamentary election. At present, the Socialists hold 16.8% of the seats.
The Salvadoran Government has made major strides in curbing human rights violations, but the evidence of abuses by both sides in the civil war indicates that human rights remain a major political issue in El Salvador, according to rights officials, foreign diplomats and interviews with refugees and political prisoners. Leftist guerrillas are responsible for an increasing number of human rights violations that the rebels appear willing neither to acknowledge nor to correct, according to human rights investigators, church officials and villagers in the countryside. The chief success of the Government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte, made possible by strong American pressure, appears to have been to virtually end Government-sanctioned killings by death squads, disappearances, gross physical torture and massacres of civilians — abuses that made El Salvador one of the most notorious human rights violators in the world a few years ago. Some killings and disappearances continue to occur, and there are also cases of indiscriminate air attacks on civilians by the Government.
President Paul Biya of Cameroon said today that at least 1,200 people had died in a cloud of gas from a volcano that choked them to death as they slept in villages in northwest Cameroon. “All people heard was the explosion,” President Biya said. “They didn’t know that toxic gas had been expelled, and it killed them while they were asleep.” Mr. Biya said that 300 people had been injured in the gas eruption last Friday, but that much was unclear in the area of Lake Nios, in the densely populated mountainous region of northwest Cameroon, about 30 miles north of the provincial capital of Bamenda.
One South African black man was killed today and eight people were wounded when officers fired birdshot and tear gas at a crowd of 500 people who were stoning a police vehicle, the Government said. The incident took place outside a high school in Soweto, Johannesburg’s main black township, where tens of thousands of students have joined in off-and-on boycotts in recent weeks to protest the presence of security forces on campus. The Bureau for Information identified the slain man as Maxim Gaga, 28 years old. A local journalist said Mr. Gaga’s mother had given his age as 22.
The White House said today that economic reprisals against South Africa had to be viewed in a regional context since they would have a “ripple effect” in southern Africa. Suggesting that the argument against sanctions was shared by black-ruled countries, White House officials said that black nations adjoining South Africa — the so-called front-line states — had to be involved in discussions on an end to apartheid.
A Soviet physicist was ordered held without bail on espionage charges by a Federal magistrate and Government prosecutors disclosed that similar investigations were under way in the New York area. The F.B.I. said the physicist, Gennadi F. Zakharov, who is assigned to the United Nations, was arrested on a Queens subway platform Saturday as he gave $1,000 to an employee of an American military contractor for three classified documents.
The President and First Lady enjoy a horseback ride.
President Reagan and his ranch hands cleared some of the riding trails around the ranch.
Federal prosecutors today asked that Jerry A. Whitworth be sentenced to at least 150 years in prison with no parole eligibility for 50 years on his conviction of espionage. Mr. Whitworth, a former Navy radioman, was convicted July 24 of selling Navy code and communications secrets for $332,000 to an espionage operation run by his longtime friend, John A. Walker Jr. Mr. Whitworth is to be sentenced Thursday by Federal District Judge John Vukasin. Defense lawyers have requested a delay to allow for the normal pre-sentence investigation, but the judge has said he does not need the study. Seven of Mr. Whitworth’s convictions carry maximum life sentences.
The sentencing of Mr. Walker and his son, Michael, on espionage charges has been postponed until October 3 because military intelligence experts have not finished questioning them, according to Robert McDonald, an assistant United States Attorney. In a deal with prosecutors last October, the elder Mr. Walker, a former Navy communications expert who headed a spy ring that sold secrets to the Soviets for more than 15 years, pleaded guilty and agreed to accept a life sentence if Michael Walker, also a Navy man, received a 25-year sentence in return for his guilty plea. The sentencing hearing had been set for Thursday.
The Socialist Workers Party was awarded $264,000 in damages by a federal judge who found the FBI improperly investigated and harassed the group during a 36-year investigation that lasted until 1976. U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa wrote that the FBI violated the group’s First Amendment rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of speech by embarking “on a series of actions with the express purpose of harming the SWP.” The leftist group and its youth arm, the Young Socialist Alliance, filed the suit in federal court in Manhattan in July, 1973, for $40 million in damages. The judge found that despite a long investigation, “there was not one single prosecution of any member of the SWP or the YSA for any terrorist or revolutionary act of any kind.”
A police helicopter and bloodhounds searched for an escaped prisoner who fatally shot his former wife and two others early today but left two teen-agers unharmed, the authorities said in Gadsden, Alabama. The prisoner, Glenn Holladay, 37 years old, who escaped from the Cherokee County Jail in March, was reported to have stormed the trailer home of his former wife, Rebecca Ledbetter Holladay, 31, and opened fire about 2 AM, the authorities said.
Three of four American families are optimistic about buying homes and cars, as low interest rates have raised consumer buying attitudes to their highest level in at least 40 years, a University of Michigan study said. The study of 1,971 consumers surveyed nationwide from April 1 to June 30 revealed consumer buying attitudes were at their highest level since the university’s Institute for Social Research began its studies in 1946. The study said 85% of those interviewed were optimistic about home purchases, and 75% were optimistic about car buying conditions.
Law enforcement officials told the nation’s governors that federal efforts to stop drug importation have failed, while a congressman said the Reagan Administration’s focus on drug users neglected the smuggling problem. The Administration has not given high priority or enough money to efforts to thwart smuggling, said Rep. Glenn English (D-Oklahoma) to a panel at the National Governors’ Association conference in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. But Francis C. Hall, commander of narcotics for the New York City Police Department, labeled federal efforts to halt drug importation a “complete failure,” saying that use of cocaine had hit epidemic proportions in New York City.
A blind man filed complaints against 10 hospitals in New York because they refused to allow his guide dog to accompany him into the delivery room for his daughter’s birth. Frank Perino, 43, said he and the dog attended natural childbirth classes at St. Vincent’s Hospital on Staten Island but the hospital told him he could not bring the dog into the labor room. Perino also filed complaints against nine other hospitals that refused to allow his dog into the labor room.
California agencies must sell more than $11 billion worth of securities in companies doing business in South Africa, under a bill that was approved by the State Senate. The amount is by far the largest such required anywhere in the country. The measure, by a vote of 27 to 11, seems assured of passage by California’s Assembly and to have Governor George Deukmejian’s signature.
Whitney North Seymour Jr. has convened a Federal grand jury that has taken testimony of executives of at least two companies about the lobbying activities of Michael K. Deaver, a former White House deputy chief of staff, according to informants. Mr. Seymour, the independent counsel, convened the panel to assess conflict-of-interest and perjury charges against Mr. Deaver.
Blacks in uniform have more chance of promotion than black civilians do, they say. Many blacks say they have found the services perhaps the best equal opportunity employer in the country. Many military women say they are ahead of their civilian sisters in responsibility and, especially, in pay.
Small doses of optimism and somber warnings were delivered today for the Middle West at a regional conference of government officials here. The region can expect an improvement over the next 18 months in the agricultural economy, one of its vital industries, said one of two speakers, Marvin Cetron, the president of Forecasting International, a consulting concern. But he warned that sharp changes were needed in the directions of the region’s educational systems. “The most important resource of the future is our kids, and you’ve blown it,” he told the Midwestern Legislative Conference of the Council of State Governments, a national association of legislators and executive and judicial officials.
Hands Across America has not raised anywhere near the $50 million it had hoped to collect and now expects to have only about $20 million for the poor because of uncollected pledges and high expenses, a spokesman said Sunday. Only $16 million is now “in the bank” and available to help the poor from the huge fund-raising project, said the spokesman, Joyce Deep, Another $16.5 million has gone to pay expenses.
Scientists have cured diabetes in test animals by means of a new technique that tricks the immune system into accepting foreign tissue.
Wisdom about chess endgames has been overthrown by a few weeks of intensive work by computers. An innovative technique that is sharply different from the programs used by computers that play chess games from beginning to end, has been put to the task of completely solving all of the possible endgame positions with five or fewer pieces.
Dinosaur hunters have reaped one of the richest scientific bone harvests in the recent history of searches. Under the leadership of Dr. John R. Horner, an expedition in Montana has collected thousands of pounds of important specimens.
Six children known to have AIDS or AIDS-related complex will be allowed to attend New York City public schools, school officials announced. The said they would not make public the identities of the children or the schools they will attend.
Astronomers have discovered a powerful new magnetic field in the Milky Way that could give new clues to how stars are formed, the National Science Foundation said. The new magnetic field is twice as strong as any yet detected in a star-forming region of the Milky Way, the report said. Magnetic fields can either impede or accelerate the formation of stars, said Thomas Troland of the University of Kentucky.
Fiery boulders rumbled down the sides of Augustine Volcano as the Alaskan island mountain shuddered through its fourth day of continuous eruption. Cloudy, rainy weather has prevented scientists from seeing the volcano, about 180 miles southwest of Anchorage, but they have been monitoring the volcano’s activity with seismic equipment.
Warner Bros. Records releases Paul Simon’s seventh solo album “Graceland,” a blend of pop, African, zydeco, and rock music; it wins the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1987 and sells over 16 million copies.
Major League Baseball:
The Kansas City Royals blanked the Chicago White Sox, 2–0. Frank White’s two-run home run with two outs in the eighth inning broke up a scoreless game and Scott Bankhead and Bud Black combined on an eight-hit shutout for Kansas City. Chicago’s Jose DeLeon (3–3) had a two-hitter before Jorge Orta walked and White hit a 3–2 pitch into the left-field upper deck for his 18th homer of the year.
The A’s Mark McGwire hits his first Major League home run — a 450-foot blast to center field off Walt Terrell — as Oakland beats Detroit 8–4 at Tiger Stadium. Home runs by McGwire and Mickey Tettleton sparked a five-run Oakland fourth and backed the five-hit pitching of Jose Rijo. Donnie Hill broke a 3–3 tie with a two-run single in the fourth before McGwire and Tettleton hit their home runs.
The Chicago Cubs bowed to the Houston Astros, 3–2. A single by Craig Reynolds knocked in the winning run in the eighth inning after Alan Ashby hit a double to tie the game. Jose Cruz singled with one out in the eighth off Lee Smith (8–8) and scored the tying run from first on Ashby’s opposite-field double. Davey Lopes, a pinch-runner, went to third on a passed ball by Jody Davis before Reynolds had his third hit of the game.
The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, 3–1. Fernando Valenzuela snapped a personal three-game losing streak with a four-hitter and Mike Scioscia and Bill Madlock homered. Valenzuela, 16–9, struck out seven and walked two en route to his major league-leading 15th complete game. He is the National League’s first 16-game winner. Losing pitcher Don Carman, 6–5, who took a perfect game into the ninth inning in his previous start at San Francisco, surrendered six hits in seven innings. The Phillies’ left-hander struck out none and walked two.
The Yankees have been chasing the Red Sox for more than three months, and once again they failed to move closer to the American League East leaders because they lost to the American League West leaders, the California Angels, 5–3. The loss, their sixth in the last eight games, kept the Yankees six games behind the Red Sox, who lost to Texas, and enabled the idle Toronto Blue Jays to tie them for second. Morganna, baseball’s notorious kissing bandit, had a more successful night. Morganna romped onto the field from the seats next to the third-base dugout in the first inning and kissed Mattingly as he stood in the batter’s box. Morganna, who had identified the Yankees’ first baseman as one of her prime targets last year, was issued a summons and ejected from Yankee Stadium, but at least she attained her quest.
The Cincinnati Reds nipped the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5–4. Eric Davis knocked in four runs with two home runs and Buddy Bell scored the winning run on Barry Jones’s wild pitch in the eighth inning. Bell lined a one-out single off Larry McWilliams (2–10) and went to third on a hit-and-run single by Davis.
The New York Mets won again. Tonight it was the Padres they beat, by 5–2. It was a pinch-hitter, Kevin Mitchell, who produced their first run, it was Howard Johnson, in a rare starting performance, bringing across the next run, and Ray Knight driving in the winning run as a pinch-hitter. Finally, three relievers — Jesse Orosco, Randy Niemann and Roger McDowell — did exactly what they were called upon to do, and Steve Boros, the Padres’ manager, remarked later: “Whatever they do works. It is rather extraordinary.” The Mets reduced their magic number for clinching the National League East Division title to 19.
The Montreal Expos edged the San Francisco Giants, 6–5. Tom Foley drove in three runs, two with a triple in a five-run first inning, and Andy McGaffigan pitched four innings of one-hit relief. The Expos’ first-inning victim was Mike LaCoss, 9–9, who suffered his sixth consecutive defeat. “I think he’s totally confused right now,” manager Roger Craig said, adding that he’s considering taking LaCoss out of the Giants’ starting rotation. LaCoss was lifted in the top of the first and ejected from the game a few minutes later by home plate umpire Larry Poncino, who said LaCoss cursed him from the dugout. “I didn’t say anything to him,” LaCoss said. “He not only can’t call balls and strikes, now he’s hearing things.”
Dale Murphy hit a two-run double with two outs in the eighth inning to lead the Atlanta Braves past the St. Louis Cardinals, 4–2. Pinch hitter Chris Chambliss singled with one out, and pinch-runner Zane Smith was forced on a grounder by Omar Moreno, who stole second base. Todd Worrell relieved Bob Forsch, 12–8, with a 2–1 count on Ken Oberkfell and completed the walk. Murphy followed with a drive to the centerfield wall. David Palmer, 10–8, won his fifth straight decision, pitching four-hit ball for seven innings while striking out seven and walking three. Gene Garber, the third Atlanta pitcher, got the last four outs for his 20th save.
A two-run home run by Ruben Sierra against Calvin Schiraldi broke a ninth-inning tie tonight as the Texas Rangers foiled Roger Clemens’s bid for his 20th victory, beating the Boston Red Sox, 4–2. Clemens entered the eighth inning with a one-hitter and a 2–0 lead, but Sierra singled and Geno Petralli, a pinch-hitter, tied the game with a two-run home run. Clemens left the game after the eighth. Schiraldi (1–1) struck out the first two batters he faced in the ninth, but walked Larry Parrish. Sierra followed with his eighth home run, a towering shot to right field. Dale Mohorcic (2–1) got the victory in relief. Clemens struck out 10 and walked three.
Kansas City Royals 2, Chicago White Sox 0
Oakland Athletics 8, Detroit Tigers 4
Chicago Cubs 2, Houston Astros 3
Philadelphia Phillies 1, Los Angeles Dodgers 3
California Angels 5, New York Yankees 3
Cincinnati Reds 5, Pittsburgh Pirates 4
New York Mets 5, San Diego Padres 2
Montreal Expos 6, San Francisco Giants 5
Atlanta Braves 4, St. Louis Cardinals 2
Boston Red Sox 2, Texas Rangers 4
A flurry of institutional selling in the first hour of trading was sufficient to depress the stock market for the rest of the session. At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 16.03 points, at 1,871.77, after having been off 17.30 at 10:30 AM. The initial selling, which involved the unwinding of buy programs by some large institutions, was provoked by negative signals from index futures markets at the opening.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1871.77 (-16.03)
Born:
Ervin Baldwin, NFL defensive end (Indianapolis Colts), in Oglethorpe, Georgia.
Died:
Allen Case, 51, actor (“Deputy”, “Legend of Jesse James”).
