President Reagan will offer a two-stage proposal on nuclear test curbs when he meets with Mikhail S. Gorbachev this weekend, the White House announced today. The plan, however, seems to fall short of the Soviet leader’s call for an immediate and total ban on all atomic tests. The latest Administration approach was a result of bargaining with the House leadership over the foreign policy provisions in a pending defense bill. The House had included provisions that would have had the effect of compelling the President to go along with the Soviet moratorium on nuclear testing. The plan announced today indicated that the President avoided having to agree to a moratorium. The substance of the American proposals, which will be presented on Saturday when the two leaders hold their first meeting, are very close to the Administration’s past policy on nuclear testing. But there are some modifications, White House officials said, that they hoped would allow Mr. Reagan to take the diplomatic offensive. The announcement of Mr. Reagan’s proposals by Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, was highly unusual, coming on the eve of the opening of talks meant to lead to a full-fledged summit meeting in the United States.
On the eve of the American-Soviet meeting in Iceland, the House and Senate leadership and the White House reached an accord on arms control issues today after House leaders backed off from major provisions the President objected to. In the compromise, the House dropped a proposal to mandate compliance with the unratified 1979 treaty on strategic arms limitations. The Democratic leaders of the House also dropped their proposal for a moratorium on nuclear tests while the President, in Reykjavik, Iceland, said he would take steps to move toward a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty with the Russians. The agreement was solidified with a telephone call between the House Speaker, Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., and Mr. Reagan, who is in Iceland preparing for his meeting Saturday with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader. “I’m delighted that now we can go forward united,” the President is reported to have said to the House leader.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived here today expressing optimism that his weekend talks with President Reagan would lead to steps that “remove the threat of nuclear war.” “We are prepared to look for solutions of the burning problems that concern peoples all over the world,” the Soviet leader said moments after he stepped off an Aeroflot Il-62 jet at windswept Keflavik Airport here. Mr. Gorbachev added, “The time we are living in demands actions by the great powers, by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but also joint actions by all states and peoples of the world.” The Soviet leader and Mr. Reagan, who arrived here on Thursday, are scheduled for two days of talks starting Saturday on arms control, human rights and other issues. They are set to meet for a total of six to seven hours before committing themselves to a full-fledged summit conference in the United States.
Soviet officials took the unusual step today of holding a news conference on domestic issues, saying Moscow’s foreign policy was inextricably linked to its internal affairs. The session, held on the eve of the weekend meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, was a striking reflection of a new Soviet self-asurance and pride about a program of domestic changes begun by Mr. Gorbachev. The official theme of the briefing was billed by Soviet officials as “The Soviet Union — New Realities.” Although the briefing was unpolished and struck many of the reporters present as an odd subject for a summit meeting, it represented a significant acknowledgment by the Soviet Union that its domestic affairs were of legitimate interest to the outside world, and was a tacit invitation for discussion of such sensitive issues as the treatment of human rights cases.
The status of Soviet Jews has emerged in advance as a central topic at the Reagan-Gorbachev meeting here this weekend. As a result, relatives of people who have been refused permission to leave the Soviet Union and spokesmen for several organizations have gathered here to lobby Mikhail S. Gorbachev to open his country’s doors for those who want to emigrate. President Reagan and his aides, arguing that the politicial climate in the United States would not tolerate a Gorbachev visit without a significant relaxation in Soviet emigration policies, have said Soviet human rights questions will be given as high a priority as arms control when Mr. Reagan meets on Saturday and Sunday with the Soviet leader. Only arms control has been raised more often in the news conferences held by the two sides than the issue of Soviet emigration, which has fallen from a high of 51,330 in 1979 to only 667 through September this year.
Irina Ratushinskaya, a poet who was sentenced in 1983 to 12 years in labor camp and internal exile for poetry deemed critical of the Soviet Union, was unexpectedly freed Thursday and returned home to her husband. Miss Ratushinskaya said by telephone today from Kiev, where she had been in prison since last summer, that she was abruptly told she was being released without restrictions or conditions, and was driven home in a black sedan. Western diplomats viewed Miss Ratushinskaya’s release as an additional gesture by the Kremlin, on the eve of Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s meeting with President Reagan in Iceland, to defuse criticism of Soviet violations of human rights.
Two Americans held in Yugoslav jails were released today, and a third American will soon be released, a Congressman announced today. Representative William S. Broomfield, Republican of Michigan, said the American Ambassador to Yugoslavia, John Scanlon, called him to say Peter Ivezaj, 30 years old, of Sterling Heights, Mich., and Vjerolub Radizojevic of Thousand Oaks, Calif., had been released. A third American, Gradimir Hadzic of the Los Angeles area, is to be released soon. Mr. Ivezaj was sentenced to seven years in prison on Wednesday by a Titograd court for taking part in demonstrations in the United States against Yugoslavia’s treatment of ethnic Albanians. Mr. Ivezaj, an ethnic Albanian born in Yugoslavia, was arrested in August while visiting relatives. Mr. Broomfield said the other two men had faced similar charges but would not be tried.
A masked gunman shot and killed a senior official of the West German Foreign Ministry outside his home near Bonn Friday night. Gerold von Braunmuhl, 51 years old, was the director of the Ministry’s political section and was the first senior West German official to be killed in Bonn.
An American ambassador criticized Austrian customs authorities for allowing a shipment of computer equipment to disappear from a Vienna warehouse. Officials believe the shipment was part of $11 million worth of sophisticated equipment smuggled out of Western Europe to the Eastern Bloc over the past year.
Prime Minister Shimon Peres submitted his resignation today to President Chaim Herzog, paving the way for Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir to succeed him next week in accordance with their power-sharing rotation agreement. The resignation of Mr. Peres was mandated by the national unity accord his Labor Party signed with Mr. Shamir’s Likud bloc in September 1984, after elections that left the two parties with an almost equal number of seats in Parliament. Under the agreement, Mr. Peres was allowed to be Prime Minister for 25 months, after which he had to step down and become Foreign Minister, while Mr. Shamir assumed the prime ministership for 25 months. Mr. Peres’s term ends on Tuesday, but to allow time for all the formalities of the transfer, he had to turn in his letter of resignation to the President today. Mr. Herzog immediately began consultations with the leaders of the various parties in Parliament to determine who they believe should form the next government.
An unidentified assailant stabbed an Israeli civilian in the occupied West Bank town of Hebron today and then fled, army spokesmen said. The victim, a resident of the Jewish settlement of Qiryat Arba, just outside of Hebron, was hospitalized with minor wounds, spokesmen said. Israeli troops imposed a curfew on Hebron and searched for suspects, spokesmen said. It was the third stabbing in the occupied territories in less than two weeks.
Communist rebels have ambushed an army platoon in the central Philippines, killing eight soldiers and a civilian in the most violent attack since the military captured a top rebel commander last month, officials said today. In another attack, in the southern city of Davao, urban guerrillas killed three policemen in a coffee shop, shooting them at point-blank range. And in Zamboanga City, a Swiss tourist was freed today by a group that seized him three months ago and demanded $100,000 ransom. The Philippine authorities said no ransom was paid for the tourist, Hans Kunzli, 45 years old.
A strong earthquake and a series of aftershocks hit the Salvadoran capital this morning, causing extensive damage in the center of the city and killing at least 100 people. Casualty figures were not precise because rescue workers had not yet dug through a number of damaged buildings. At least one large office building in the center of the city was destroyed. Strong tremors continued throughout the afternoon, sending inhabitants of the capital into the streets, where they remained tonight, sleeping in makeshift shelters. Radio Cuscatlan, a station monitored in neighboring Honduras, said about 45 people were known dead, including at least 30 youths whose bodies were found in two schools, and another radio station, YSU, said more than 150 people were killed in the collapse of the 10-story Ruben Dario theater building, The Associated Press reported. Neither report could be confirmed immediately. Doctors said about 50 children died at the Bloom Children’s Hospital and an undetermined number of people were trapped beneath the rubble, according to United Press International. The news agency said President Jose Napoleon Duarte had declared a state of national emergency and pleaded for “tranquility” among Salvadorans. Emergency clinics were set up on street corners, but communication was cut in most of the capital and electricity was available in only a few neighborhoods.
Nicaraguan officials today permitted a United States diplomat to see for the first time the American who was captured five days ago when a rebel supply plane was shot down over Nicaragua. The diplomat, a consular officer from the United States Embassy, made the 11-minute visit after the Nicaraguan Foreign Minister, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, said at the United Nations today that the American prisoner would be put on trial. Some of the documents taken from the downed rebel supply plane showed that it and at least one other plane flew dozens of missions over the last year and a half, with landings in El Salvador, Honduras and the United States, carrying supplies to Nicaraguan rebel units. A Nicaraguan intelligence official said an analysis of all documents indicated hundreds of flights, an estimate that could not be confirmed.
Government officials said today that White House and Pentagon officials had continued to assist private efforts to supply the Nicaraguan rebels. They did not directly link Reagan Administration officials to the flight of a cargo plane downed on Sunday in Nicaragua. But they said senior officials had helped those who set up a supply network for the rebels more than two years ago, when Congress cut off aid. In Managua today, an American official was allowed to see the plane’s surviving crewman for the first time. The Administration has repeatedly denied that any Government agency was linked to the plane. Secretary of State George P. Shultz reiterated that statement today in Iceland, where he was accompanying President Reagan.
After a two-year delay, House and Senate conferees agreed today to renew the Clean Water Act and called for $18 billion for sewage treatment over the next eight years. The legislation also authorizes several new programs to curb pollution in the nation’s waters, including controls on runoff from farm land and city streets for the first time. Previously, the law imposed controls only on pollution entering water sources from specific points, such as municipal sewage treatment plants and factories. But the drainage or pouring of agricultural chemicals, heavy metals and other pollutants into waterways has also been a major source of contamination.
The Reagan Administration shut down most of the Federal Government early today, seeking to put pressure on House and Senate negotiators to reach agreement on the comprehensive appropriations bill for 1987. But the shutdown will have only a “marginal impact” over the three-day holiday weekend, according to Edwin L. Dale Jr., spokesman for the Administration’s Office of Management and Budget. All essential employees, including law-enforcement and military personnel, would continue to work, as they did in November 1981, the last time delays in appropriations led to a partial Government shutdown. In the absence of the comprehensive appropriations bill, the Government has been financed through stopgap appropriations since October 1, when the fiscal year 1987 began. The current appropriations ran out at 12:01 AM.
Moving with unusual speed, House and Senate negotiators met today to start working out their differences over a comprehensive immigration bill designed to stem the flow of illegal aliens into this country. The House approved its version of the bill Thursday night by a vote of 230 to 166, and many people on Capitol Hill said the legislation had enough momentum to become law this year. The Senate passed its version of the legislation by a vote of 69 to 30 in September 1985. Senator Strom Thurmond, Republican of South Carolina, was elected chairman of the conference committee, which consists of seven senators and 32 representatives.
A man wielding a hammer and calling the United States “an imperialistic country” smashed the glass-encased display of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights at the National Archives today. Officials said the documents were not damaged. With three blows of a claw hammer, the assailant broke three star-shaped holes in the half-inch laminated outer glass of the display case, said Kenneth E. Harris, chief of the Archives’ document branch. Mr. Harris examined the documents and said they received “absolutely no damage.” Jill Brett, an Archives spokesman, said the glass protecting the documents was broken but the bulletproof, helium-filled inner display case was not damaged.
The Transportation Department has delayed imposing penalties against states that have not enforced the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit on Federal highways. Its position reflects a desire by the Administration and some in Congress to end the limit.
For voters who do not favor Gov. John H. Sununu, the race for Governor in New Hampshire has reduced itself to a single word, on bumper stickers that are plastered around the state. The word combines his name with the most emotional issue facing New Hampshire, the Seabrook nuclear plant. It is “Sununuke.” Mr. Sununu, who stresses that the plant is finished and that licensing is a Federal decision, has been the most prominent supporter of the project in Seabrook, the seacoast town that for more than a decade has attracted debate, demonstrations and predictions of doom. In recent weeks the nuclear issue has irritated Mr. Sununu’s relationships with the Governors of neighboring Vermont and Massachusetts. In the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union, the Boston television stations, watched by half the voters in New Hampshire, are nightly chronicling the efforts by Massachusetts to block the opening of the Seabrook plant, which is on the border. In the next few days the plant will load fuel, adding to the concern of the opponents.
Secretary of Education William J. Bennett strongly criticized Harvard University’s core curriculum today, charging that the widely discussed new curriculum was only an “agglomeration” of old courses. “I just don’t think you can call it a core curriculum — Core-Lite, maybe,” Mr. Bennett said in a speech that was part of a celebration staged by Harvard students to mark the 350th anniversary of the school’s founding. Mr. Bennett, a graduate of the Harvard Law School, said Harvard’s failure to work out a more “purposeful” core curriculum helped account for the large number of “intellectual and educational casualties among the student body.”
The second trial of Larry Layton, once a devoted member of the People’s Temple religious commune, opened today with the prosecutor accusing him of being one of 13 assassins at a jungle airstrip that killed a Congressman and four others eight years ago. Mr. Layton, 40 years old, is the only gunman still alive, the United States Attorney, Joe Russoniello, said in opening statements for the defendant’s second trial in the United States. All 12 of the others died within a few hours of the shootings November 18, 1978. They perished along with commune leader, the Rev. Jim Jones, who led 913 of his followers in mass murders and suicides a few miles from the airstrip in Guyana, Mr. Russoniello said. The first United States trial of Mr. Layton ended in a hung jury five years ago. He was acquitted earlier in Guyana. Mr. Layton, who was a close aide to Mr. Jones, is charged with conspiracy and aiding and abetting the slaying of Representative Leo J. Ryan, a Democrat from California, and four others on the jungle airstrip that served the commune. Mr. Ryan had traveled to Jonestown to investigate charges of abuse.
A special investigator, appointed by Mayor Harold Washington to examine the possibility of corruption in Chicago’s City Hall, submitted his 147-page report today, but the contents were kept secret. Thomas P. Sullivan, a former United States Attorney here, was appointed a special assistant corporation counsel in February after published reports first began mentioning the existence of an undercover Federal investigation into possible corruption in the awarding of city contracts here. Indictments are expected within several weeks. The trial of five New York City politicians and business executives in a parallel investigation is already under way in New Haven, where details involving Chicago officials are beginning to appear in testimony.
Producer prices rose four-tenths of 1 percent in September. The Labor Department attributed the rise to a sharp increase in gasoline prices. Economists said price increases for the remainder of the year should remain moderate.
Pickets marched along the New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama, waterfronts today after contract talks with a group representing stevedores and steamship companies broke down and about 2,700 longshoremen walked off the job. The talks broke down over the issues of overtime pay and the size of work crews. Four locals of the International Longshoremen’s Association were directly involved in the contract dispute with the New Orleans Steamship Association, and two others refused to cross picket lines, union officials said. The union had agreed to wage cuts ranging from 18 percent to 30 percent on bulk and general cargo.
Negotiators waited for word from a state mediator today about the resumption of contract talks in the first faculty strike in Temple University’s 102-year history. On Thursday the faculty union lowered its salary demand from 25 percent to 20 percent in an attempt to get contract talks started.
Samuel H. Armacost, whose tenure at the helm of the BankAmerica Corporation has been marked by turmoil and huge losses, will resign this weekend, the banking company announced today. As Mr. Armacost’s replacement, banking sources said, the board of directors is expected to name A. W. Clausen, the president of the World Bank until last June and the chief of BankAmerica until Mr. Armacost took over five years ago. The board is to meet on Sunday. Industry sources said directors had forced Mr. Armacost’s resignation as president and chief executive officer. The sources said the directors had become convinced that a change was needed to restore the health of the nation’s second-largest banking company and the confidence of customers and investors. Citicorp, based in New York, is the nation’s largest banking institution.
A pilot whose plane entered restricted airspace just before a jetliner collision that killed 82 people will lose his license for six months, the Federal Aviation Administration has decided. The plane flown by Roland Paul Furman appeared suddenly on an air traffic controller’s radar screen Aug. 31 as the controller was overseeing the flight of a Los Angeles-bound Aeromexico DC-9, the authorities said. The controller was talking with Mr. Furman over the radio when the Aeromexico jetliner was struck by another small plane and plunged to the ground in Cerritos, said John Lauber, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Mr. Lauber declined to say if the radio conversation with Mr. Furman was a factor in the crash. F.A.A. lawyers said the agency decided on the suspension because of Mr. Furman’s presence in the restricted area and other reported violations.
The Mississippi River receded yesterday after inundating towns near St. Louis, and forecasters said the worst of the flooding that has swamped the Midwest for more than two weeks appeared to have passed. But the Arkansas River continued to lap at the walls of the Toad Suck Lock and Dam, and Gov. Bill Clinton called in 33 National Guard members to stack thousands of sandbags along a levee to keep it from breaking. The forecast calls for a 40 percent chance of isolated thunderstorms today and a chance of rain tomorrow. About 55,000 people in the Midwest have been forced to flee their homes because of the rain. The flooding has caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, the most serious in Michigan, where state officials estimate losses at $323 million, Missouri at $105 million, and Illinois up to $100 million.
Major League Baseball:
The Royals announce that Dick Howser, who underwent surgery for a brain tumor in July, will return to manage the club next season.
Major League Baseball, American League Championship Series, Game 3:
The Angels score 5 runs in the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings to down the Red Sox 5–3. In Game 3, the Red Sox struck first in the second on Rich Gedman’s RBI single with two on off John Candelaria, but after pitching five shutout innings, Oil Can Boyd allowed a game-tying RBI single to Reggie Jackson in the sixth. Dick Schofield’s two-out home run in the seventh put the Angels up 2–1. After Bob Boone singled, Gary Pettis’s two-run home run extended their lead to 4–1. The Red Sox scored two runs in the eighth on Donnie Moore’s balk with runners on second and third and Gedman’s RBI single, but the Angels padded their lead in the bottom half on Ruppert Jones’s sacrifice fly off Calvin Schiraldi. Moore pitched a scoreless ninth as the Angels went up 2–1 in the series with a 5–3 win. During the game, scoring on Reggie Jackson’s single, Wally Joyner suffered an opened staph infection, which would sideline him for the rest of the series.
Boston Red Sox 3, California Angels 5
With trading volume shrinking considerably, stock prices drifted lower on Wall Street yesterday as investors remained indifferent. “One week the economy is dying, the next week it’s doing better,” said Joseph Feshbach, a market analyst with Prudential-Bache Securities. “It’s driving everyone crazy.” The Dow Jones industrial average fell 3.65 points yesterday, to 1,793.17, for its second consecutive loss. For the week, the blue-chip average rose 18.99 points, despite being dragged down at times by the poor stock performance of the International Business Machines Corporation.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1793.17 (-3.65)
Born:
Andrew McCutchen, MLB centerfielder (All-Star, 2011–2015; Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee Brewers, Texas Rangers), in Fort Meade, Florida.
Cedric Peerman, NFL special teams gunner and running back (Pro Bowl, 2015; Detroit Lions, Cincinnati Bengals), in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Nathan Jawai, Australian NBA center and power forward (Toronto Raptors, Minnesota Timberwolves), in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Died:
Gleb Wataghin, 86, Ukrainian-Italian physicist.
