President Reagan has decided to persevere through unpublicized Iranian contacts to seek the release of the two American hostages held by a pro-Iranian group in Lebanon, Administration officials said today. They said that at a high-level meeting with his aides on Monday, Mr. Reagan was advised that there was still some hope that in another week or so the hostages, Thomas M. Sutherland and Terry A. Anderson, might be freed. Officials said the White House was convinced that there was a strong enough chance for the release to warrant continued effort, but they expressed doubt that the contacts could continue productively for much more than a week. At least three other Americans are held by other groups in Lebanon.
The White House counsel was never consulted as the National Security Council, operating with the approval of President Reagan, supervised shipments of military materiel to Iran over the last 18 months, according to past and present White House officials. But in the last few days the counsel, Peter J. Wallison, has begun an examination of the legal issues surrounding the affair, those officials said. With critics in Congress and elsewhere casting doubt on the legality of the Iran operation, the White House insisted Monday that “no U.S. law has been or will be violated.” But today, a White House official said that although there was a presumption that the Iran dealings were legal, Mr. Wallison’s office had not yet reached any conclusions.
Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi ordered an inquiry today into the possibility that a small Italian port was used for United States arms shipments to Iran without the knowledge of the Italian Government. A statement from the Prime Minister’s office announcing the investigation said the Government had never reached any agreements of any kind with the United States to assist in the transfer of war materiel to Iran. The announcement of the investigation followed news reports that the small Tuscan port of Talamone, in Grosseto Province, had been used in the arms shipments.
Communist Party leaders in the East Bloc trade group called Comecon have agreed on cooperation to make their economies more dynamic and to raise living standards, the official Soviet news agency Tass reported. It said Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and leaders of nine allied countries ended two days of talks in Moscow with unanimity on all topics. However, Tass also referred to frankness during the talks, an indication of some disagreement. Moscow reportedly wanted an improvement in the quality of goods received from Eastern Europe in exchange for oil, gas and nuclear technology.
Fire broke out aboard a Soviet cruise ship in the Sea of Japan, killing two crew members and forcing 300 schoolchildren into lifeboats for two hours before help arrived, the official Soviet news agency Tass reported. The fire began in the engine room of the Turkmenia shortly after midnight as the ship was sailing about 60 miles off Nakhodka. The children and some of the crew were put into boats, and the rest stayed behind to fight the fire, Tass said. The blaze came less than three months after the Soviet cruise liner Admiral Nakhimov collided with a freighter and sank in the Black Sea with a loss of 400 lives.
The daughter of David Goldfarb, a Soviet geneticist who emigrated last month after the American industrialist Armand Hammer intervened, said today that she had received permission to visit her ailing father in New York. The daughter, Olga Goldfarb, said in a telephone interview that she applied Wednesday for an emergency visa to make a one-week visit to New York. The application was made the day her father had an operation to remove part of his left lung after American doctors discovered he had cancer. Olga Goldfarb, a 34-year-old physician, said authorities told her today that she could collect her passport to travel abroad Thursday. She said she wanted to leave by Saturday.
The United States and Poland have resumed high-level contacts in a sign of a possible thaw in relations that were frozen after the crackdown on Solidarity and the imposition of martial law five years ago. Rozanne L. Ridgway, the United States Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, discussed Washington-Warsaw relations with Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Jan Kinast, in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday. Although neither side reported headway, it was the highest-level contact between American and Polish officials since Washington imposed economic sanctions in December 1981. Poland’s Government spokesman, Jerzy Urban, said today that there was no “essential breakthrough” in relations because the countries’ position “on basic problems remains fundamentally different.” He said the sanctions were “the main obstacle” to improved relations.
About 5,000 Solidarity supporters marched through Warsaw’s Old Town today shouting slogans in support of the outlawed union. The march toward the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier followed a mass in the cathedral marking the anniversary of Poland’s independence in 1918.
An Italian court document made public today contends that three Bulgarians who were acquitted after having been tried for plotting to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981 provided suspicious alibis. The document says the alibis did not refute evidence that the papal assailant, Mehmet Ali Ağca, had had dealings with them before he shot the Pope. In reviewing the 10-month conspiracy trial and the verdict it produced, the document concluded that while no firm evidence emerged to link the defendants in an assassination plot, there were solid indications that Mr. Ağca had not acted alone.
In the week since a chemical fire sent millions of gallons of poisoned water into the Rhine, noisy street demonstrations have erupted across Western Europe. The protests have included a violent spree of window-smashing and a confrontation in which a protester spat in the face of a director of Sandoz, the chemical concern involved. Grafitti artists, and the French and West German press have called the city “Chernobasel,” or “Chernobale,” using the city’s German and French names and alluding to the nuclear power accident at Chernobyl in April. Ecologists have called the Swiss chemical incident one of the worst in a decade. From here to the North Sea, anger has mounted along the Rhine. Hundreds of thousands of fish and eels have died, and some drinking water may have been contaminated. West German officials have accused the Swiss authorities and Sandoz of negligence in failing to follow safety regulations.
A bomb exploded in the early morning hours outside Belgium’s main synagogue in the center of Antwerp, causing damage but no injuries, police reported. No one claimed responsibility for the bomb, which was set just outside the main entrance of the building, near the center of the port city’s Jewish district. It was the third bomb attack in Belgium this year, with the assailants unknown in each case. Earlier targets were the offices of a socialist-led trade union in Antwerp and a Masonic lodge in Brussels.
Since being elected President of Austria in June, Kurt Waldheim has been one of the loneliest political figures in Europe, shunned by ambassadors and statesmen and effectively unable to travel abroad because of the lingering doubts over his war record. When an East-West conference convened here last week, courtesy calls by foreign ministers were more than routine protocol events for the President, who holds a largely ceremonial job. They offered hope that his days of splendid isolation might be ending. “As you know,” he said in an interview , “I had about 10 ministers as far as I can remember come.”
Commoners bought 120 lordships of manors at a London auction. The fire sale in manorial paper titles began with 10 that were purchased at an average clip of two minutes and $15,000 each.
Two Frenchmen, held hostage for months in Lebanon, were released today and handed over to the Syrian authorities. They arrived in Paris this evening. The two, Camille Sontag, 84 years old, and Marcel Coudari, 54, were taken from Beirut to Damascus early this morning and released to Syrian custody by a group calling itself the Revolutionary Justice Organization. Mr. Sontag had been held for six months and Mr. Coudari for nine months. Chirac Welcomes Pair They were met at Orly Airport by Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, who thanked Syria, Saudi Arabia and Algeria, as “those who made this liberation possible.” He did not specify what role those countries had played.
Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Sedki named a new Cabinet, retaining several key figures from the former government of Ali Lutfi. Sedki kept Field Marshal Abdel-Halim abu Ghazala and Esmat Abdel Meguid as deputy prime ministers in charge of defense and foreign affairs, respectively. Mohammed Ahmed Razaz was named finance minister replacing Saladin Hamid, who became the central bank governor. Youssri Mustafa, Sedki’s top aide in his former job as head of the Central Auditing Agency, took the economy portfolio, replacing Sultan abu Ali.
A United Nations human rights report on Afghanistan, made public today, cites widespread atrocities by Government and Soviet troops. “Largely typical of the atrocities,” the report said, are the bombing of villages, the disembowelment or kicking to death of villagers and the use of explosives disguised as toys. The report found widespread torture in Afghan jails.. The report was compiled by Felix Ermacora of Austria, a special investigator on Afghanistan for the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
A mere 200 yards from the marble mausoleum housing the embalmed body of Mao Zedong, the talk today was of zero coupons, the dynamic management of assets and liabilities and legitimate portfolio vehicles. As a twin file of out-of-towners waited to view Mao’s body, 250 of China’s leading financial minds were listening to such financial jargon during lectures in the Mongolia Room of the Great Hall of the People. The speakers were the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, John J. Phelan Jr., and nearly two dozen senior American investment and commercial bankers and corporate lawyers. The subject: the intricacies of American and international stock and credit markets.
Japan had a record trade surplus of $5 billion with the United States in October, Tokyo said. But several American economists said they believed the overall U.S. trade deficit was starting to ease.
From the banquet hall of the Imperial Palace to the aisles of a Ginza department store, President Corazon C. Aquino of the Philippines stepped up her campaign today to reassure Japanese political leaders and business officials that she had brought stability to her country. Mrs. Aquino’s second day in the capital of Asia’s dominant economic power was an unvarnished appeal for new investment and continued political recognition of her Government. “We need outright aid — that is true at this point in time,” she told 200 Members of Parliament at a reception this evening. “But more important, we need Japan’s expression of faith in the promise of Philippine progress.”
Envoys crisscrossed Manila today between the Defense Ministry and the palace in an effort to defuse a Government crisis that has raised fears of a coup. “There’s a lot of talk going on by a lot of intermediaries,” said one of the envoys before heading for Malacanang Palace. “We’re doing it the Filipino way, talking out our differences.” With President Corazon C. Aquino in Tokyo and the man who has made himself her rival, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, holding to a newly assumed low profile, the mediators seemed to be taking advantage of a brief breathing space.
A senior Mexican government official said there is no reason for “any type of concern” that his country might allow Soviet consulates near the U.S. border. He was responding to reports that Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze had raised the idea of opening diplomatic posts in northern Mexico during an official visit. to Mexico last month. The spokesman for Mexico, who requested anonymity, said: “The Soviet authorities have not asked the Mexican government to open consulates near the United States border or any other place.” U.S. officials had expressed concern that such a development would open the way to expanded Soviet espionage in California and New Mexico.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today that he had found “changes of opinion and judgment” among Latin American countries that were leading to greater sympathy for United States policy toward Nicaragua. “I don’t think it’s necessarily so that people are all against this effort,” Mr. Shultz said between sessions of an Organization of American States meeting here. “I have no doubt at all that there would be a great sigh of relief in all of Latin America if we saw a shift to a pluralist, more democratic government in Nicaragua.” But diplomats from several other O.A.S. member nations disputed Mr. Shultz’s conclusion. They predicted that the organization would approve a resolution critical of United States policy in Central America.
At least 20 people, mostly blacks, were reported wounded today when two bombs exploded in a small town in Natal Province. In Port Elizabeth, meanwhile, striking workers at the American-owned General Motors plant voted to continue a two-week-old work stoppage, but the company said it would break the strike by using nonunion labor. The bombs exploded in the coal-mining town of Newcastle, the newest in a series of urban guerrilla attacks since South Africa imposed an emergency decree June 12.
Veteran’s Day in the United States. Washington recalled war veterans at rainy ceremonies. Fred W. Smith, a Vietnam veteran, told 2,000 people at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that the military must have the nation’s commitment to fight.
President Reagan places a call to Barney R. Barnett, rancher and personal friend of the President.
Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia was assured today of becoming the Senate majority leader in the next Congress when Senator J. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana announced that he was dropping his bid for the job. “If you don’t have the votes,” Mr. Johnston told a news conference, “you might as well not make your friends walk the plank.” The Louisiana Democrat admitted that he had not been able to pierce Senator Byrd’s “aura of electability,” and that many senators would not take the risk of opposing Mr. Byrd unless they were sure he could be beaten. “I can tell you,” Mr. Johnston said, “senators want to be on the good side of the majority leader.”
Almost two-thirds of the nation’s air traffic controllers oppose rehiring the 11,400 controllers fired by President Reagan during an illegal strike in 1981, a new congressional survey said. The survey, conducted by the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, showed that many controllers believe morale would suffer if the strikers were brought back. Of the 2,000 controllers and supervisors who took part in the survey, the Federal Aviation Administration said, about 60% of controllers and 85% of supervisors expressed opposition to the rehiring.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson tonight denounced what he called the “blatant attempts” of the Democratic Party to exclude his ideas for political and social changes from the party’s agenda. In his speech, ‘Moral Decisions in an Amoral World,” at the Harvard Law School, Mr. Jackson described his relationship with the party as a “day by day struggle.” Mr. Jackson, leader who failed in an attempt to gain the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1984, said he was pleased that last week’s election made the Democrats “the new majority” in the Senate, and he termed the election “a major referendum on Reaganomics.”
A Democratic congressional challenger in Indiana who refuses to concede began identifying precincts for review by a state commission, in one of three House races that remain undecided. Thomas W. Ward is seeking a recount of the 3rd District race in which incumbent Republican John Hiler was certified as the winner by 66 votes. In an unsettled raçe in Minnesota, Democratic state Sen. Collin Peterson claimed victory over GOP incumbent Arlan Stangeland, although a final vote showed Stangeland leading by 221 votes. And, in North Carolina, Democratic challenger Robin Britt asked for a recount after GOP incumbent Howard Coble was declared the winner by 82 votes.
The Nebraska mandatory seat belt law has been repealed by a margin of about 0.1%. Officials said the margin was 561 votes, with the percentages standing at 50.052% opposed and 49.948% for the law. They said official results are expected around December 1. Jack Merritt, consultant for Nebraskans for Safety, a group favoring seat belts, blamed the defeat of the law on voter negativism on other issues and races. He pointed to a referendum on the state’s school consolidation law, which lost by a wide margin.
The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops today elected two centrist Archbishops from the Middle West to lead them for the next three years, rejecting candidates from the liberal and conservative wings. Archbishop John L. May of St. Louis was elected president of the organization, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, at the annual meeting of nearly 300 prelates here. Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk of Cincinnati was elected vice president. Later in the day, the bishops met in closed session to discuss the case of Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen of Seattle, who was recently stripped of his authority in five pastoral areas by the Vatican, which accused him of failing to enforce strict doctrinal traditions.
Archbishop May takes measured, low-key approaches and is expected to avoid controversy and seek reconciliation with the Vatican over the next three years, church officials said.
A White House aide pressed the Army to negotiate a 1982 contract with the Wedtech Corporation, a Bronx military contractor that is now the center of several investigations, according to a Small Business Administration memorandum. The aide, identified in the document as Pierre Talenti, also attended a negotiating session in Washington between the Army and the Small Business Administration on the Wedtech contract, according to a sign-in sheet circulated at the meeting. The memorandum, which was written by Jesse R. Quigley, an official of the Small Business Administration in New York, did not explain how Mr. Talenti pressed the Army or suggest that he did anything improper. Mr. Talenti has since left the White House. Mark Weinberg, a White House spokesman, said that because of the Veterans’ Day holiday he was unable to provide any explanation for the meeting, identify Mr. Talenti’s connection with the White House, or provide any forwarding number for him. The Small Business Administration has repeatedly declined to discuss Wedtech or release any documents concerning the company because of an internal investigation by the agency’s Inspector General.
Jack (Murph the Surf) Murphy, who played the violin, won a trophy for surfing, stole the Star of India sapphire and committed a murder, said today that he would spend the rest of his days working for God. Mr. Murphy, who was paroled Monday after serving 16 years of a double life sentence, appeared at a news conference today. The 49-year-old Mr. Murphy said he would spend this weekend on a surfboard.
A new air-fare war may occur, industry officials said. Continental Airlines announced lower fares on some flights out of Chicago and Houston, and other carriers said they would match the lower prices.
A leading Chicagoan has given $6.9 million to help establish a Graduate School for Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. The donor is Irving B. Harris, a businessman and trustee.
Police officers in New York ignored traffic violators, made fewer misdemeanor arrests and broke into radio calls to create confusion during a protest against official measures to fight corruption. The protest stemmed from a seven-point plan announced last week by Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward, calling for rotating 20% of the force to different neighborhoods every year, which would result in the transfer of all officers to new precincts every five years. Thirteen officers from Brooklyn’s 77th Precinct were arrested last Thursday on charges of shaking down drug dealers.
Trans World Airlines has announced an agreement on a new contract with the Air Line Pilots Assn. The accord is subject to ratification by the rank and file, which is expected within a month, said Angelo Marchione, head of the union at the airline, in Kansas City. Terms of the pact were not disclosed, but the Kansas City Times reported that it would extend to 1992 some of the concessions made by pilots last January. In return, the report said, Carl Icahn, company chairman, has agreed not to dismantle the airline this year, as he promised to do last September.
A state judge in Florida has withdrawn a manslaughter finding against a woman in the death of her husband, saying she was doing so to preserve the woman’s eligibility for Social Security benefits. The widow, Alma G. Guthrie, 72, was convicted of manslaughter in the death May 9 of her husband of 52 years, James R. Guthrie, and is serving a two-year term of house arrest. But the judge, Catherine M. Harlan, withdrew the finding Monday on learning that Mrs. Guthrie would be left penniless by a formal conviction. Federal law bars payment of widow’s benefits to women who kill their husbands. Prosecutors protested the judge’s decision, but the judge said, “I can’t see her having no source of income.” Mrs. Guthrie said her husband was shot when a gun misfired after she confronted him as he tried to steal some of her jewelry. She said he had become violent in recent years, after years of a good relationship.
An intruder carrying an ax broke into the home of California’s Secretary of State, March Fong Eu, robbed her, beat her and dragged her through the residence by her hair, a spokesman said today. Mrs. Eu, who is 64 years old, suffered face cuts and bruises in the attack Monday night, the spokesman, Caren Daniels-Meade, said. She was listed in satisfactory condition at Westside Hospital. The police said there was no reason to believe the attacker recognized his victim or that the assault was politically motivated. The attacker beat Mrs. Eu with the handle of the ax as he dragged her through her home, demanding money.
A dynamite bomb was found yesterday in a Queens, New York medical clinic where abortions are performed after the police responded to an anonymous telephone caller. The bomb — three sticks of dynamite wired to a an alarm clock, blasting cap and battery — was defused by members of the police bomb squad at the site, the Queens Women’s Medical Office at 83-06 Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst. The bomb was found under a cushion of a couch at 8:30 A.M., after an employee of the clinic arrived to let the officers in, a police official said.
New interest in fresh produce is leading major food companies to use advances in biotechnology to breed better-testing vegetables and try to market them under a host of new brand names.
The Bay Bridge is 50 years old. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which linked San Francisco with the eastern edge of the bay, shaped the region’s future and altered the way people there live. It was 50 years ago, on November 12, 1936, that automobiles first crossed the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, a visual work of art and a triumph of engineering that linked the city with the eastern edge of San Francisco Bay more than five miles away. Until then, thousands of people commuted across the bay each day on more than 100 ferryboats, often shrouded in fog, sipping coffee or dining on a secret recipe of corned beef hash for which some of the ferries were famous.
Minor planet No. 3147, an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, has been named Samantha Smith in memory of the American girl who visited the Soviet Union in 1983 to campaign for better relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Major League Baseball:
Houston’s Mike Scott (18–10) beats Fernando Valenzuela (21–11) for the National League Cy Young Award, garnering 15 first-place votes to Valenzuela’s 9.
Forty-five-year-old player-manager Pete Rose is dropped from the Reds’ 40-man Major League roster to make room for pitcher Pat Pacillo. Rose will continue to manage the club.
Airline shares were hammered down yesterday in an otherwise narrowly mixed stock market. Despite the broad and steep decline in the airline issues, which sent the Dow Jones transport index plunging 8 points, to 836.63, the industrial share average closed up 3.66 points, at 1,895.95. The decline in the airline sector came after Continental, a major Middle West carrier, cut some fares. Analysts said the news immediately provoked fears in the industry of another price war. Many banks and the bond market were closed in observance of Veterans Day. Volume on the New York Stock Exchange totaled 118.5 million shares, down from 120.2 million Monday. Declining Big Board issues narrowly exceeded advances by 771 to 762.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1895.95 (+3.66)
Born:
Jon Baptiste, American jazz pianist, singer-songwriter, bandleader (Stay Human; “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”), and film score composer (“Soul”), in Metairie, Louisiana.
Victor Cruz, NFL wide receiver (NFL Champions, Super Bowl XLVI-Giants, 2011; Pro Bowl, 2012; New York Giants), in Paterson, New Jersey.
Mark Sanchez, NFL quarterback (New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins), in Long Beach, California.
Died:
Roger C. Carmel, 54, American stage and screen actor (Harry Mudd in “Star Trek”; “The Mothers In-Law”), of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
