White House and Pentagon officials described as premature published reports that the United States will break the SALT II treaty limits this week. The reports said that the 131st B-52 bomber in the U.S. fleet will be armed this week with a nuclear cruise missile and become operational, a move that would exceed the limits of the unratified 1979 strategic arms limitation treaty. Pentagon spokesman Robert Sims said it is “no secret” that such a move will be made later this year but said the reported timetable is premature. White House spokesman Larry Speakes said he believes there will be no deployment until December. Citing Soviet treaty violations, President Reagan announced in May that he would no longer abide by SALT II.
A second Chernobyl reactor shut down after the nuclear plant’s disaster has been restarted for tests, Soviet press organizations reported today. Three Chernobyl reactors were shut down in April after an explosion tore open the No. 4 reactor and sent radiation into the atmosphere. At least 31 people have died from the disaster on April 26, which caused more than $2.9 billion in damage. More than 100,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the northern Ukraine and southern Byelorussia after the accident. The Communist Party daily Pravda said the No. 2 reactor was put into a “test regime” after being cleaned of radioactive contamination. Similar tests on the No. 1 reactor began in early October. Pravda said the No. 1 reactor had been shut down again for “corrective” work and then returned to service at the plant, 80 miles north of Kiev. The reports did not say when tests began on the No. 2 reactor, or when it would reach full power.
About 5,000 Poles cheered Solidarity leaders, including founder Lech Walesa, at a church service in the port city of Gdansk marking the sixth anniversary today of the government’s recognition of the now-outlawed union. “Let us go ahead with the union’s activities,” Walesa urged, despite the fact that the labor union has been banned since a military crackdown in December, 1981. Solidarity was born as a result of a strike in Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyard in August, 1980, and its legal recognition was ordered by a court on November 10, 1980.
About 500 people gathered at a Roman Catholic church in this Warsaw suburb today to mark the 30th anniversary of the Hungarian uprising with a mass and a ceremony that was much more passionately outspoken than any Hungarian observance of the revolt. Letters from Hungarian dissidents citing the connections between Polish, Czechoslovak and Hungarian upheavals were read from the pulpit. A display of photographs of Budapest during and immediately after the 1956 uprising was set up in the church basement. Books of poems about the insurrection, printed in Polish and Hungarian, sold out quickly. A marble plaque was dedicated to Hungarians killed in the 1956 uprising.
In a stunning reverse three months before national elections in West Germany, the Social Democratic Party lost its clear majority of parliamentary seats and its position as the biggest party in the city-state of Hamburg. In the last state election before the national parliamentary balloting on January 25, Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats emerged for the first time since World War II as the biggest party in Hamburg, traditionally a bastion of the Social Democrats. Scoring their biggest percentage ever in a state election, the anti-establishment Green Party won an unexpected 10.4 percent of the popular vote with a slate of candidates composed entirely of women. The Greens had campaigned for an immediate abandonment of nuclear energy in the northern port state and for a cleanup of the polluted Elbe River.
Dutch engineers closed sluices and locks today to protect the country’s extensive inland waterways from contamination by toxic waste flowing down the River Rhine after a spillage at a Swiss chemical plant. The state water authority said the first signs of pollution were detected in the Dutch section of the Rhine in the early hours today. A week ago, water used to extinguish a fire at the Sandoz factory near Basel in northwestern Switzerland carried tons of chemicals into the Rhine. On Saturday in Basel, about 5,000 demonstrators marched to protest the accident.
The Washington Times today published what it said was a full transcript of an interview conducted by its editor in chief with the French Prime Minister, Jacques Chirac, which has become the subject of controversy. On Friday, in an article based on the interview, the newspaper said Mr. Chirac had remarked that the West German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher believed that a purported plot to blow up an Israeli jetliner in April was a fake. According to the newspaper, Mr. Chirac said the two West German officials had told him that the operation probably was planned by the Israeli secret service and Syrian political factions, not the Syrian Government of President Hafez al-Assad. Britain broke diplomatic relations with Syria last month after Nezar Hindawi, a Jordanian citizen, was convicted of trying to smuggle explosives aboard the El Al jetliner in London by hiding them inside the bag of his pregnant lover. The British Government said it had direct and incontrovertible evidence of Syrian Government involvement in the incident, including contacts between Mr. Hindawi and the Syrian Ambassador to London. Britain is to seek further sanctions against Damascus at a meeting of European foreign ministers today.
Two weeks after it failed to get agreement from its European partners on a set of measures against Syria, Britain will try again Monday at a meeting here of the 12 Foreign Ministers of the European Community. The British demand for action against Damascus came in the aftermath of the conviction here of Nezar Hindawi, a Palestinian of Jordanian citizenship, on charges of trying to place a bomb on an El Al Israel Airlines jumbo jet in April. The prosecution contended that Mr. Hindawi, who traveled to London under an alias on a Syrian passport and later sought refuge in the Syrian Embassy, was an agent in a plot engineered by high military intelligence officers in Syria. Within hours of his conviction on October 24, Britain broke diplomatic relations with Damascus.
Militant environmentalists boarded two of Iceland’s four whaling ships early today and opened key sea valves, sinking the ships in Reykjavik harbor, a leader of an antiwhaling group said. No crew members were aboard the vessels at the time. Today, as the scuttled vessels’ prows poked out of the harbor’s 35-degree waters, police divers confirmed that valves had been opened on the 434-ton Hvalur 6 and the 427-ton Hvalur 7. Paul Watson, president of the Vancouver-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, claimed responsibility for the sinkings. He said a team from his group had sneaked into the engine rooms of the vessels and opened the valves, sending sea water pouring into the holds.
Israel confirmed today that it had apprehended a missing nuclear technician who sold a British newspaper what he said were the secrets of an underground Israeli atomic bomb factory in the Negev. The technician, Mordechai Vanunu, was believed to have been tracked down by agents of the Mossad secret service somewhere in Europe or on the Mediterranean and covertly returned to Israel. He is expected to stand trial in secret on various counts of security offenses. After weeks of foreign press reports suggesting that Mr. Vanunu had been abducted and returned to Israel, and repeated official denials by Israeli Government spokesmen, the Cabinet issued a statement today.
Israel received four metric tons of heavy water from the United States in 1963, just as Israel began to operate a nuclear reactor where it is suspected of having produced materials for nuclear weapons, according to a report based on Government documents. The disclosure raises questions about Israel’s possible use of the heavy water, which facilitates nuclear reactions, to help in assembling a nuclear arsenal. The report, by Gary Milhollin, a University of Wisconsin law professor who is researching the spread of nuclear weapons, said Israel might also have used heavy water obtained from Norway to help run its reactor at Dimona. It has been believed for years that plutonium for nuclear warheads is produced at Dimona. The Sunday Times of London reported last month that the Dimona reactor was much larger than previously known and had produced enough plutonium for more than 100 nuclear weapons.
The Israeli Supreme Court rejected an appeal for freedom from retired Ohio auto worker John Demjanjuk, whose lawyer said Israel could not prove that his client is the notorious Nazi war criminal “Ivan the Terrible.” Demjanjuk, 65, a Ukrainian-born naturalized American from Cleveland, was indicted Sept. 30 on four counts of “crimes against humanity” during World War II for operating the gas chambers at Treblinka death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, where hundreds of thousands of Jews and other minorities were put to death.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz conferred at his home today with key State Department aides to discuss what further steps the Reagan Administration might take to discourage Syria’s involvement in terrorist activities. The meeting came amid suggestions that Mr. Shultz was troubled about reports of secret United States arms shipments to Iran. Aides to Mr. Shultz, who opposed any covert arms effort to gain the release of American hostages held in Lebanon, said Saturday that his concern might lead to his resignation, but these reports were described today as “pure speculation.” Democrats, meanwhile, stepped up criticism today of a policy of using weapons deals to obtain the release of the hostages and to encourage Iran to change its policies.
Iraqi warplanes hit two tankers in the Persian Gulf in a renewal of raids on shipping after a recent lull. Both vessels were part of an Iranian shuttle ferrying crude oil to the southern gulf, where it is transferred to tankers lying outside the war zone in the northern gulf. Shipping sources said the 115,871-ton Angel, flying the Cypriot flag, was damaged and that its crew was taken off safely. Lloyd’s Shipping Intelligence later said that the 116,404-ton Iranian tanker Khark had also been hit and was aground and on fire. There was no word on casualties. Three Dutch tugs were reported heading for the vessel.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, brushing aside reports of a power struggle among his followers, said today that his Islamic revolution was entrenched in Iran. “Our enemies must understand that the Islamic Republic has been stabilized and is not dependent on any person, but on the people and the armed forces,” Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian religious leader, said in a speech to military men at his residence in the hills just north of Teheran. The Ayatollah’s assessment that the Islamic fundamentalist movement that overthrew Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlavi nearly eight years ago has become institutionalized is shared by a number of academic experts and diplomats in the area. The power struggle that now appears to be going on over the succession to Ayatollah Khomeini is being carried on in Islamic and Iranian terms difficult for the outsider to discern, these sources said, and not readily definable in such Western terms as extremist, moderate, liberal or conservative.
The police chief in India’s Punjab state said that 173 of the 249 infiltrators killed this year by Indian border police on the frontier with Pakistan were unarmed laborers from Bangladesh, not spies or Sikh terrorists. Chief Julius F. Ribeiro told a news conference that of the other 76 killed, 29 were Indians, including 19 Sikhs, and the rest Pakistanis. Punjab police are not responsible for border security, and Ribeiro was disputing charges by Sikh politicians that his units have killed innocent Sikhs along the frontier. Bangladesh, a Muslim nation on the opposite side of India from Pakistan, was part of Pakistan from 1947 until 1971.
In a major rebuff to Tamil separatist insurgents in Sri Lanka, India placed several top Tamil guerrilla leaders under house arrest today at their base of operations in the southern Indian city of Madras. It was the second Indian move in two days against the Tamil guerrillas, who for years have used southern India as a sanctuary and arms supply center from which to carry out their insurgency. On Saturday the Tamil Nadu state police rounded up hundreds of guerrillas and seized huge caches of weapons. Indian news agencies said today that most of the rank-and-file guerrillas had been released. But among the guerrilla leaders detained today were Vellupillai Prabakaran, head of the largest insurgent group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and Anton Balasingam, its spokesman and theoretician. News reports in Madras said they were being detained at their residences with armed guards posted outside. Indian news agencies said the guerrilla leaders would remain under house arrest for 10 days, until after an annual meeting of the leaders of the countries of South Asia in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.
Written forms of Chinese vary despite the efforts of the State Language Commission, which was created to try to unify the written language. Some characters can be written correctly two or three ways.
Two South Korean Protestant ministers are being held for questioning in connection with anti-government remarks, the police said today. The two ministers were identified as the Rev. Kim Tong Wan, 45 years old, the secretary general of the National Council of Churches of Korea, and the Rev. Koh Yong Keun, 53, head of a Christian organization in Seoul.
Toyota is trying to cut expenses and is seeking tax cuts from the Japanese Government. The company’s income has been sagging in large part because of the increased value of the yen.
President Corazon C. Aquino announced Sunday that she had instructed the military to block any attempt at a coup while she is seeking financial aid in Japan and called on the people to take to the streets in her defense if necessary. In her strongest response to the continued agitations of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, Mrs. Aquino said, “I shall oppose any attempt from any quarter to interfere with or dictate to my Government.” The statement was a break with what her advisers have said was a deliberate policy of low-key responses designed not to provoke Mr. Enrile. The Defense Minister was among the officials who saw Mrs. Aquino off at the airport when she left this morning on her four-day trip. The President said that, as on the eve of her previous trips abroad, “the country is awash with rumors of an impending coup or an emergency contrived to justify uncalled-for action by some military units.” She said such rumors were particularly destructive in that they “undermine our efforts to get much-needed assistance.”
As tensions in Manila continue to rise despite the efforts of President Corazon C. Aquino to put an end to persistent rumors of an impending coup, left-wing groups say they are preparing to take to the streets to thwart the military if necessary. Groups from the political center who support Mrs. Aquino are also urging vigilance in the next few days, and the President vowed on Sunday night to call out her supporters if the situation warranted it. But the left, which boycotted the elections last February and stood back from the subsequent “people power revolution” that swept hundreds of thousands of Filipinos into the streets to back Mrs. Aquino, is now in a position to support the Government at a critical moment. It could thus regain lost ground or take advantage of weaknesses growing out of Cabinet rifts.
A Salvadoran guerrilla leader today defended the insurgents’ use of land mines, saying they had proved to be an effective weapon against Government forces. “A propaganda campaign has been launched because of the use of mines, trying to make it a human rights issue,” said Shafik Handal, one of the top commanders in the Salvadoran guerrilla movement. “This campaign is aimed at forcing us to renounce a weapon that has been very important for us.”
The governing left-of-center party scored a solid victory today in municipal elections across Peru. The results were interpreted as a vote of confidence in President Alan Garcia. In the key race for the mayoralty of Lima, with almost 90 percent of the votes counted, the party’s candidate, Jorge del Castillo, appeared to have narrowly defeated the incumbent, Alfonso Barrantes Lingan, an independent Marxist nominated by the United Left coalition. Elsewhere, the governing party, the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, was leading in most of the country’s 1,883 municipalities, even taking some town halls from the United Left in the impoverished south, which has been convulsed in recent years by guerrilla activities.
Chadian rebels loyal to former President Goukouni Oueddei have agreed to a cease-fire with the government of President Hissen Habre, a spokesman for the rebel forces said. He said the accord was reached with the Chad government October 24. It was unclear which factions of the Libyan-backed rebel coalition have accepted the agreement. Goukouni, who has said he was ready to negotiate with Habre, was placed under house arrest last month in Tripoli, capital of Libya, and was later wounded in a gun battle with Libyan soldiers.
The 1988 Presidential campaign is well under way. Because of changes in the system through which the major-party candidates are nominated, politicians have little choice but to get started. Representative Jack F. Kemp of upstate New York will be in New Hampshire today announcing that he has received key endorsements there in his bid for the Republican Presidential nomination. It is in that New England state that the 1988 primary season begins on a mid-February day 15 months from now. And many strategists say it could end, for all practical purposes, less than a month later, on March 9. That is “super Tuesday,” when 14 states have their primaries, the day many candidates believe is their deadline for winning — or losing — their parties’ nominations.
Severe restrictions on how much grain farmers can grow and more aggressive sales of American farm products overseas will be pushed by newly elected members of the Senate and Congressional leaders from rural states when Congress reconvenes next year. Several senators from farm states said they expected Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the Democrat in line to become chairman of the Agriculture Committee, to take a much stronger lead in shaping farm policy than the current chairman, Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina. Senator Leahy said his committee would be much more active. The Democrats, he said, were handed a special responsibility Tuesday, with huge political ramifications. Unless improvements are made in the economic conditions of rural America, he said, the Democrats could be criticized as vehemently in the 1988 Presidential election as some Republican candidates were this year.
President Reagan is able to catch a couple of short walks between showers.
President Reagan spends most of the day keeping up on news and working on homework.
Tuesday’s elections should prove to America’s trading partners that there is an increased support in the United States for protectionism, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker 3d said.
American Catholics strongly reject the views of their bishops on many sex-related issues, from women’s rights to abortion and birth control, an independent Catholic group said in Washington. The study by Catholics for a Free Choice said: “Half or almost half of all Catholics support abortions in a wide range of circumstances, including an unintended pregnancy occurring to a poor woman or an unmarried teenager.” The study added: “Most Catholics, like most Americans, support the use of artificial methods of contraception and widely use these methods in their private lives… A clear majority of Catholics believe that contraceptive information should be available to teenagers.”
The deadline for claiming a year-old $2.9-million Illinois Lottery jackpot brought out four people who each claim to be the missing millionaire, but “they all either claim the ticket was lost or burned up or something of that nature,” a lottery spokesman said. Others who claimed to have won the November 9, 1985, drawing were ruled out because they did not know where the winning ticket was purchased, the spokesman said. He said the four must “file a claim and provide us all the pertinent information… We want someone to win it, but it’s going to take a very strong investigation.”
Changes in federal student-aid regulations are causing delays of a month or more in the delivery of 1987-88 financial aid forms for 2.5 million high school and college students, the College Board said in New York. The forms, published in 43 state and national versions and required by most colleges and universities reviewing candidates for financial aid, could not be printed until amended to show new congressionally mandated regulations to the federal Higher Education Act. A College Board spokesman said the delay will mean a shortened application period for financial aid, prompting fears that students and their parents may interpret the delay as a sign there is no assistance available.
General Motors Corp. said it will lay off indefinitely 1,300 workers at its Buick City assembly plant in Flint, Michigan, because of production cuts. GM spokesman John Mueller said the layoffs are effective November 24. The No. 1 auto maker is cutting back production of its front wheel-drive Buick LeSabre model. The work force at the plant is 6,700. GM said last week that it plans to close nine plants and curtail operations at two others by 1990, eliminating 29,000 jobs.
Federal officials have announced plans to move some of the Cubans being held at the United States Penitentiary here to a minimum-security prison to prepare them for parole. But they said dangerous offenders would stay at the Atlanta prison, which now houses about 1,800 Cubans who arrived in the 1980 Mariel boatlift.
The Texas Board of Education recommended that the 1987 Legislature eliminate a law requiring teachers to take examinations in subjects they teach. The exams were approved in 1984 in conjunction with the basic literacy test for educators, but lawmakers never appropriated money for the subject tests. The subject tests are not needed because educators have performed well on the basic literacy test, the board chairman said. He also said a teacher appraisal system now in place can effectively measure whether teachers know their topics.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. began issuing checks Sunday for insured depositors of the First National Bank & Trust Co. of Enid, Oklahoma, which was closed by federal regulators last week. The doors opened at 1 PM for depositors with holdings under the federally insured $100,000 to receive their checks, said Pat McCarthy, FDIC supervisor at the bank. The federal comptroller of the currency blamed the bank’s problems on inadequate management and the region’s economy, which has been hard hit by the downturn in agriculture and energy. The closure of the Enid bank and three others brought the total this year to 120 nationwide, a post-Depression high for the second consecutive year.
Federal health officials, concerned over 13 cases of cholera on the Gulf Coast, have urged that crabs and shrimp be cooked thoroughly to eliminate any contamination. The cases appeared to be caused by contaminated seafood in Florida and Louisiana, the Federal Centers for Disease Control said Thursday. It noted that seafood produced on the Gulf Coast is shipped to many states. Twelve of the cases were reported within a 200-mile radius of New Orleans. The other case was in Florida. Ten patients had severe diarrhea; 7 required hospitalization, and 4 required treatment for hypotension, abnormally low blood pressure, the centers reported.
Now that they have finished with those races for obscure offices like Governor and United States Senator, Chicago’s politicians and voters are getting down to what is regarded locally as really important: the struggle for the Mayor’s office. The primaries will be held late in February, and the mayoral election in April, but feuding factions of Democrats and hopeful Republicans are already jockeying for political positions. They have been at it virtually from the day after the 1983 election, when Harold Washington, by a narrow margin, became the first black to be elected Mayor. But in a city that follows its professional politicians almost as closely as it does its professional football players, the outcome of the elections last week has already ignited a series of fast-moving events. Several new names were added in the speculations — and subtracted — within a matter of hours. And the developments seemed to place in doubt all the standard lineups for the mayoral election in this city of three million people.
After a year of study and debate, local officials are putting the finishing touches on proposals constituting the most concerted planning effort yet to deal with Denver’s notorious air pollution problems. The air-quality proposals in part reflect the gravity of Denver’s pollution problems, by some measures the nation’s most severe. But they also may reflect one positive offshoot from the region’s economic downturn, as air pollution has been transformed from an environmental issue to one with major economic ramifications as well. Concern about Denver’s air pollution, and particularly the infamous brown cloud that hovers over the city for much of the time from November to January, is not new here. But officials say there is now a flurry of activity relating to air quality, and one of the primary reasons for the widespread concern is the steep economic slide brought on by the collapse in the energy industries.
Having voted yes on three “sin issues,” Kansans will soon start going to the dogs, a lot of people here are saying, though opinions differ on whether that is good or bad. As a result of constitutional amendments approved last Tuesday, for the first time since their Constitution was adopted in 1861 Kansans will soon be able to place legal bets on dog and horse races. They will also have a state lottery. And for the first time since Prohibition came to Kansas in 1880, nearly four decades ahead of the rest of the country, visitors to Kansas will be able to walk into neighborhood bars and order liquor.
A national commission headed by former Education Secretary Terrel H. Bell called today for an effort to nearly double the number of college-educated adults by the turn of the century. The commission faulted members of the Reagan Administration and others for “unthinkingly abetting an act of national suicide” by trying to cut aid for college students. Mr. Bell’s 22-member panel prepared the report for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, which represents 372 four-year campuses that enroll 2.5 million students and award a third of all bachelor’s degrees in the country. It urged states to keep college tuitions as low as possible, in part to help recruit more minority students and stop the growth of “an American underclass.”
Asian-Americans, California’s fastest-growing ethnic minority, are starting to assert themselves in an effort to gain political power proportionate to their rising population. Their effort toward more influence is coinciding with a rapidly growing Asian economic presence on the West Coast including increasing efforts to acquire real estate, manufacturing plants, retail businesses and other properties. Asians now make up 7 percent of the state’s population, and some demographers expect the proportion to exceed 10 percent before the turn of the century because of continuing immigration and new births. And the quest for greater political influence is said to reflect, in part, concern over increasing discrimination against Asians. The police have reported attacks on Asian-Americans in various cities around the nation that were said to be racially motivated.
Corporate giving will likely decline this year for the first time in 16 years. American companies expect their charitable contributions to drop 2.5 percent from last year, according to a survey.
The first major snowstorm in the northern Plains killed at least five people and stranded hundreds of travelers. The heaviest snow was in North Dakota, where 25 inches were reported at Devils Lake. The storm moved into Canada yesterday after spreading wind-blown snow and low temperatures from the northern Rockies to the Great Lakes. Part of Interstate 29 south of Drayton, North Dakota, remained closed yesterday, and a state highway near Eagle Butte, South Dakota, was still blocked by drifts. “Traveling is probably the worst hazard we’ve had,” a deer hunter, Marvin Boss of Clark, South Dakota said while siting in a cafe in the town of Faith in northwestern South Dakota. “The roads are really bad — solid ice.”
The public health gains being achieved by the World Health Organization in such fields as malaria control, child vaccination and health care facilities in developing countries may be undone by the rapid spread of AIDS, according to Dr. Jonathan M. Mann, who heads the organization’s program of AIDS control. W.H.O., for example, has been promoting a program of child immunization against such diseases as measles, whooping cough and tetanus. Normally a vaccine stimulates the defense system of the body to produce chemical defenders, or antibodies, against the target disease. But children whose immune systems have been crippled by AIDS may be unable to produce such antibodies.
NFL Football:
Walter Payton, playing with a dislocated toe, rushed for 139 yards and Mike Tomczak ran for one touchdown and passed for another today to lead the Chicago Bears to a 23–3 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tomczak, starting at quarterback in place of the injured Jim McMahon, scored on a 1-yard sneak and tossed a 37-yard touchdown pass to Willie Gault, both in the first quarter when Chicago took a 14–3 lead. Tomczak, who was relieved by Doug Flutie in the fourth quarter, completed 11 of 24 passes for 265 yards. One scoring drive he directed covered 92 yards and another covered 91. Flutie, who had played with the Generals of the United States Football League, made his National Football League debut with 4 minutes 29 seconds left to play after Tomczak completed his last pass, a 50-yarder to Gault that gave the Bears a first down at the Tampa Bay 17. The drive stalled at the 5, where Flutie’s only pass — to Emery Moorehead in the end zone — fell incomplete on third down. Chicago settled for Kevin Butler’s third field goal of the game with 1:58 left.
The Houston Oilers edged the Cincinnati Bengals, 32–28. Warren Moon and Drew Hill opened up a seldom-used passing attack and Houston (2–8) held off a second-half rally by Cincinnati (6–4). Boomer Esiason, the Bengals’ quarterback, was benched at the start of the third quarter but came back late in the period and rallied Cincinnati from a 29–7 deficit with three touchdown passes. Trailing by 29–28, the Bengals had a chance to win with 6:18 left in the game recovering a fumble at Houston’s 36. But Cincinnati lost possession by failing to convert on fourth down with 4:24 to go. Moon, who completed 25 of 44 passes for 310 yards, hit his first 7 and sparked the Oilers to a 19–0 halftime lead. Hill had 10 receptions for 185 yards.
The Los Angeles Raiders pulled out a comeback victory over the Dallas Cowboys, 17–13. Jim Plunkett left the bench to throw two touchdown passes to Dokie Williams in the second half as Los Angeles (6–4) rallied for the victory. The Raiders intercepted Steve Pelluer, the Dallas quarterback, five times and sacked him seven times. The 38-year-old Plunkett, who replaced an ineffective Marc Wilson after halftime, tied the game at 10–10 in the third period. He flipped a 20-yard scoring pass to Williams after Jerry Robinson had intercepted a Pelluer pass at the Dallas 23. With Dallas leading by 13–10 in the fourth period on Rafael Septien’s 20-yard field goal, Plunkett hit Williams with a 40-yard touchdown pass with 10:15 to play after Vann McElroy’s second interception of the game. Dallas led by 10–3 after a first half in which Wilson and Pelluer suffered three interceptions each. The Cowboys had two apparent touchdowns called back by penalties.
The New Orleans Saints blanked the Los Angeles Rams, 6–0. Morten Andersen kicked a pair of second-half field goals and Dave Waymer picked off a Steve Dils pass with 2:52 left to preserve the victory. It was the first shutout for the Saints (5–5) since they beat Chicago by 10–0 in 1982. Los Angeles (7–3) had not been shut out since 1984. The New Orleans defense held Eric Dickerson, the league’s leading rusher, to 57 yards on 21 carries. The Rams appeared to be driving for a winning touchdown in the final five minutes of the game, reaching the New Orleans 21-yard line after starting at their 20. But when Dils lofted a pass for Ron Brown, Waymer stepped in, intercepted and returned the ball to the New Orleans 26 to kill the threat.
The Minnesota Vikings downed the Detroit Lions, 24–10. Tommy Kramer threw for 284 yards and a touchdown and Minnesota (6–4) turned three Detroit turnovers into scores. Joey Browner of the Vikings, who returned an interception 39 yards for a touchdown, led a defense that recovered three fumbles, one of them at the Minnesota goal line with 4:54 remaining. After Minnesota had taken a 10–0 halftime lead, the Lions (3–7) scored with 10:33 left in the third quarter on a 10-yard pass from Eric Hipple to Jimmie Giles. But Kramer, who completed 24 of 39 passes with two interceptions, took the Vikings 83 yards to a touchdown in only five plays, all passes. The score came on an 11-yard toss to Anthony Carter, who finished with 111 yards on 5 receptions.
The New England Patriots defeated the Indianapolis Colts, 30–21. Tony Eason passed for 240 yards and a pair of third-quarter touchdowns for New England (7–3). The Colts (0–10), trying desperately to gain their first victory, surprised the favored Patriots with the passing of Jack Trudeau, their rookie quarterback, and two first-half touchdowns. But repeated penalties on the Colts and four interceptions by New England halted several Indianapolis threats. The 21 points marked a season high for Indianapolis, but the Colts were hurt by seven penalties for 85 yards. Indianapolis built a 14–3 lead on a 1-yard touchdown run by Randy McMillan in the first quarter and a 1-yard run by Trudeau in the second period. But scoring passes by Eason of 8 yards to Willie Scott and 2 yards to Irving Fryar in the third quarter put the Patriots ahead to stay.
Yes, the New York Giants won. No, they did not win pretty. In a rough game marked by enough punching and shoving and elbowing to satisfy a hockey crowd, the Giants outlasted the Eagles, 17–14, today. The Giants carried a 17–0 lead into the fourth quarter, then surrendered two touchdowns. In the final minute, Tony Galbreath of the Giants insured the Giants’ victory by leaping and catching an onside kickoff. The Giants’ defense made its usual big plays. Its pass rushers made seven sacks, three by Lawrence Taylor. Joe Morris ran for his usual big yardage, this time 27 carries for 111 yards and both touchdowns.
Throwing short, throwing long, throwing across the field or to the sidelines, the Jets’ Ken O’Brien flirted with two National Football League records today. They were about the only things he failed to achieve in another glittering victory. The Jets recorded their eighth straight triumph, taking a 28–0 lead over the Atlanta Falcons and easing to a 28–14 decision. O’Brien approached Ken Anderson’s record of 20 straight completions as he hit on 17 in a row, starting with his third pass of the game and continuing into the third quarter. The quarterback at one point also owned the finest completion percentage for one game. He was 23 for 25, a mark of 92 percent. Anderson, who plays for the Cincinnati Bengals, also holds the one-game percentage mark for anyone throwing at least 20 passes. He hit 20 of 22 (90.9 percent) against Pittsburgh 12 years ago.
The Buffalo Bills beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 16–12. Robb Riddick rushed for 108 yards and a touchdown as Marv Levy gained a victory in his debut as the Bills’ head coach. Levy replaced Hank Bullough, who was dismissed last Monday. Buffalo (3–7) also scored on a 3-yard pass from Jim Kelly to Andre Reed and a 29-yard field goal by Scott Norwood. Pittsburgh (3–7) was hurt by two missed extra-point attempts. The game was played in a steady 35-mile-an-hour wind. Riddick, who last week dropped a game-ending pass in the end zone that would have given the Bills a victory over Tampa Bay, ran for more than 100 yards for the first time in his four-year career.
With his surgeon watching closely from the sidelines and a near-capacity crowd in Candlestick Park cheering his every move, Joe Montana returned to work today. And what a triumphant return it was. Just 55 days after Dr. Arthur White repaired a herniated disk in his back and two days after he called Montana “crazy” for returning, Montana threw three long touchdown passes to Jerry Rice to lead the San Francisco 49ers to a 43–17 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals and improve their record to 6–3–1. Better still: He finished the game in healthy condition. Montana, who injured his back in the 49ers’ opening game, performed as if he had never been away, showing no outward signs of apprehension, even in the face of Dr. White’s recommendations throughout his recovery that he not return. Given fine protection from his offensive line and a lift from Joe Cribbs, who ran for 105 yards, Montana completed 13 of 19 passes for 270 yards, with one pass intercepted. His touchdown passes — all to Jerry Rice — covered 45, 40 and 44 yards and gave Montana four for his abbreviated season. He was sacked just once and hit after eight other pass plays. But he suffered no physical damage before he left in the fourth quarter and said later he did not feel soreness, stiffness or pain. “I was just glad to get the first hit out of my mind and see that there wasn’t any pain at all,” he said.
Rolf Benirschke kicked three field goals and Jeffrey Dale intercepted two John Elway passes deep in San Diego territory, sparking the Chargers to a 9–3 victory over the Denver Broncos today. The upset snapped an eight-game losing streak for the Chargers, who gained only their second victory against eight defeats. The Broncos, the leaders in the American Conference West Division, slipped to 8–2, just one game ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs, whom they play next week. San Diego controlled the ball under Tom Flick, the third-string quarterback who started in place of the injured Dan Fouts and Mark Herrmann. Using mostly short passes to his tight ends and runs by Gary Anderson and Curtis Adams, Flick led the Chargers on long drives for all of their scores.
The Kansas City Chiefs topped the Seattle Seahawks, 27–7. Bill Kenney, shaking off a nightmarish first quarter, threw three touchdown passes to give Kansas City (7–3) its best 10-game record in 15 years. Kenney threw two interceptions in his first four passes and the Chiefs lost a fumble on Seattle’s first punt. But the Seahawks (5–5) managed only 14 yards and a missed field goal after the turnovers as the Chiefs posted their best record since a 7–2–1 start in 1971, which led to their last playoff appearance. Kenney hit 9 consecutive passes in one stretch of the second period and wound up with 22 completions in 41 attempts for 256 yards.
The Washington Redskins beat the Green Bay Packers, 16–7. Jay Schroeder passed for 167 yards and two touchdowns as Washington (8–2) remained tied with the Giants for first place in the National Conference East. Schroeder, who completed 13 of 23 passes, threw a 26-yard touchdown pass to Rickey Sanders in the first quarter and a 6-yard scoring pass to Kelvin Bryant in the third quarter. The Packers (1–9) played the second half without Randy Wright, their starting quarterback. Wright was hospitalized with a neck injury he suffered when tackled late in the second quarter by Charles Mann, a defensive end. Mann hit Wright in the head with his helmet and was penalized for roughing the passer. Dr. E. S. Brusky, the Packers’ team physician, said Wright had suffered a mild concussion and neck sprain and would remain in the hospital at least overnight. Wright completed 6 of 12 passes for 55 yards, threw one touchdown pass and was intercepted once. Chuck Fusina replaced him and completed 12 of 16 for 99 yards.
Chicago Bears 23, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 3
Cincinnati Bengals 28, Houston Oilers 32
Los Angeles Raiders 17, Dallas Cowboys 13
Los Angeles Rams 0, New Orleans Saints 6
Minnesota Vikings 24, Detroit Lions 10
New England Patriots 30, Indianapolis Colts 21
New York Giants 17, Philadelphia Eagles 14
New York Jets 28, Atlanta Falcons 14
Pittsburgh Steelers 12, Buffalo Bills 16
St. Louis Cardinals 17, San Francisco 49ers 43
San Diego Chargers 9, Denver Broncos 3
Seattle Seahawks 7, Kansas City Chiefs 27
Washington Redskins 16, Green Bay Packers 7
Born:
Carl Gunnarsson, Swedish NHL defenseman (Toronto Maple Leafs, St. Louis Blues), in Orebro, Sweden.
Derrick Harvey, NFL defensive end (Jacksonville Jaguars, Denver Broncos), in Greenbelt, Maryland.
