President Reagan, under intense domestic and international criticism, tonight defended what he called his “secret diplomatic initiative to Iran” and vigorously denied that the United States had sought to exchange weapons for American hostages in Lebanon. In a nationally broadcast speech from the Oval Office, Mr. Reagan said he had authorized the transfer of “small amounts of defensive weapons and spare parts” to Iran. The President said his intent was to “send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between us with a new relationship.” It is “utterly false,” the President said, to assert that the United States sent weapons to Iran as “ransom” for Americans held in Lebanon. He said at another point that one of the reasons for the diplomatic initiative was “to effect the safe return of all hostages.” The President’s speech was apparently designed to respond to a wave of bipartisan Congressional criticism that secret American arms shipments to Iran had undercut Administration policy that ostensibly sought a worldwide embargo against weapons to Tehran. But he did not cite Congressional opposition so much as press reports that he said had distorted “the facts.” Mr. Reagan’s speech, marked by an unusually defensive tone, depicted American contacts with Iran, and the establishment of a secret arms relationship, as the central elements of a strategy to improve ties with a strategically pivotal Persian Gulf country.
The attempt tonight by President Reagan and other top aides to justify publicly their secret policy shift on Iran came in response to almost universal criticism in the foreign policy and political community. Many here say there have not been so many expressions of shock and bewilderment about a foreign policy surprise in 25 years. By ending his own silence and authorizing aides to divulge additional details, the President seemed to be trying to salvage his Administration’s reputation in foreign affairs. But the consensus here is that damage has been severe. Many officials within the Government have spoken openly of their astonishment and irritation at the deliberate policy under which top officials such as Secretary of State George P. Shultz publicly assured Arab foreign ministers that the United States was trying to block all arms sales to Iran, while White House aides were secretly arranging for equipment to be sent to Tehran.
Several Democratic members of Congress said tonight that despite President Reagan’s assertions to the contrary in his speech, they still believe that the United States swapped arms with Iran for the release of American hostages. The members also said they feared that Americans in the Middle East will be in danger in the future because terrorists might be encouraged to take more hostages to trade for arms. Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, who will be the Senate Democratic majority leader next year, said after the speech that the assertion that there was no exchange of arms for hostages is “like saying it’s all right to deal with the mafia boss but not the hit man.” He said that the whole series of dealings with Iran was a “major foreign relations blunder” and that the President should not consider any more small shipments of arms to Iran, even if they would result in the freeing of hostages still held in Lebanon.
The secret talks between Iran and the United States began more than a year ago, when a consultant to the National Security Council met an Iranian expatriate businessman, according to Reagan Administration officials. The consultant, Michael Ledeen, had been dispatched by Robert C. McFarlane, a senior adviser to President Reagan who believed it was possible to explore a closer relationship with Iran. Although the Administration was concerned with broad strategic issues, the negotiations quickly focused on the American hostages, an issue of such importance to President Reagan that a senior Administration official said the President raises the issue in half of his daily morning briefings. The Iranian intermediary, a businessman living in Europe named Manucher Ghorbanifar, was suggested by Israeli officials, who had maintained covert dealings with Iran for years. Mr. Ghorbanifar purported to have extensive ties to the political leadership in Tehran.
The recent disclosure of secret United States Government dealings with Iran has complicated Justice Department prosecutions in cases involving arms smuggling to the Iranians. Federal law enforcement officials said today that the Justice Department had begun a review to see whether any of the cases had been jeopardized by the secret dealings. They said the issue was likely to be aired in a publicized Federal case in New York on Monday. The Justice Department has also been trying to carry out President Reagan’s admonition that terrorists be apprehended and prosecuted.
U.S. State Department officials said that representatives of the United States and Iran are nearing agreement on the return of about $500 million in Iranian funds held by the Federal Reserve Bank since 1981. The $500 million represents the balance left in a $3.667 billion account Iran put at the disposal of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York to pay off loans the Iranian government owed when economic relations between the two countries were severed during the Carter Administration. However, State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the discussions about the funds “have no connection” to the hostage issue.
The Reagan Administration, responding to Congressional reductions in foreign aid, is about to announce cuts in military assistance to some close allies, including nations that provide important bases for American forces. The Administration’s allocations of military aid in the current fiscal year are to be set forth in a report to Congress, which, under the law that provides military assistance, must be published by November 17. But the decisions are still being made, and the report may be delayed a few days, the officials working on it said. “It is an extremely contentious issue, and is still being decided,” one Administration official said.
Sandoz, the Swiss company whose plant leaked toxic chemicals into the Rhine River, pledged to pay “proven claims” for damage in one of Europe’s worst ecological disasters. Gerhard Schmid, chief counsel to the chemical firm, said in Basel that it may take months to determine how much the company will have to pay. The company’s insurance firm said that actual damages are believed to be less than $60 million, and Sandoz’s maximum coverage was five times that much. West German authorities have said that the spill killed at least half a million fish and that organisms on which fish feed were severely affected. Four nations — Switzerland, West Germany, France and the Netherlands — were forced to shut down plants processing Rhine water for drinking.
A typewriter and other tools of the trade used by a Soviet reporter in Washington were seized by United States marshals today as they began attaching Soviet Government assets to pay off a libel judgment won by a California man. The Californian, Raphael Gregorian of Palo Alto, won a $413,000 libel suit in United States District Court here in June. Mr. Gregorian said he lost a $10 million business after an article in the Soviet Government newspaper Izvestia in 1984 had accused him of dishonest business practices and his office in Moscow was closed. According to Mr. Gregorian’s lawyer, Gerald Kroll, marshals today went to the home of Leonid Koryavin, the Izvestia correspondent in Washington, and said they were taking his typewriter and will return with a truck Friday to pick up desks, filing cabinets, a television set and bookcases.
A draft report prepared for lawmakers from the 16-member Atlantic alliance concludes that international terrorism is becoming more sophisticated, increasingly sponsored by Middle Eastern countries and deadlier each year. The 52-page report singles out Syria, Iran and Libya as countries that have “actively” sponsored international terrorism, along with the Palestine Liberation Organization. It says the P.L.O. is a “government in waiting” whose diplomatic missions and large fund-raising operations have supported terrorist actions. The report chides Western Europeans for preferring to respond to terrorist attacks with political measures that have sought mainly to “catch up” with events rather than “prevent the escalation of terrorism.”
The office of Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, in a reversal, today conceded the accuracy of an interview in which he said he was told a plot to blow up an El Al jet was hatched by Israeli agents and Syrian dissidents. However, Mr. Chirac’s spokesman, Denis Baudouin, in confirming the authenticity of an interview with the Washington Times, also accused the newspaper’s editor, Arnaud de Borchgrave, of having violated journalistic ethics in the “off the record” meeting. Mr. de Borchgrave published the text after Mr. Chirac initially questioned the content of an article based on the interview. In the interview, Mr. Chirac quoted West German leaders as having told him that the El Al affair had been staged by Israeli intelligence agents and Syrian dissidents. Mr. Chirac did not make clear whether he shared the theory himself. The West Germans have disavowed the reported theory. Mr. Baudouin, the spokesman, said today that he was pleased the text of the interview had been published because it showed France’s Middle East policy in a coherent light. But he accused Mr. de Borchgrave of pretending to switch off his tape recorder at the start of the interview while in fact leaving it to record.
Israeli doctors have found that the bone marrow of a Soviet woman and her Israeli brother are compatible, but they said it might be too late to save the brother’s life. Doctors at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem said an examination of the tissues of Inessa Fleurov and her brother, Michael Shirman, who has leukemia, showed that the bone marrow was suitable for a transplant.
A visit to Southeast Asia and the Pacific by President Chaim Herzog of Israel has stirred protests from Islamic organizations in the region and caused a diplomatic scuffle here over who invited him. Mr. Herzog’s Asian and Pacific tour is the first to this region by an Israeli head of state in more than a quarter of a century. The President, who is expected to arrive in Manila on Sunday, began his 19-day tour early this month with visits to Australia and New Zealand. He is now in Fiji. After the Philippines, he plans to go to Singapore, according to the Israeli Embassy.
A three-member pricing committee of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries begins meeting today in Quito, Ecuador, charged with finding a way to raise the price of a barrel of oil by about $3, to $18. The committee — comprising the oil ministers of Kuwait, Libya and Ecuador — will be working under the long shadows of Saudi Arabia and Iran as they confront the thorny production and pricing problems that threaten most oil producers. The Saudi and Iranian oil ministers will not be attending, but there is no doubt that the panel will produce a report satisfactory to those countries, oil analysts in the United States said. The idea of returning to a fixed-price system was first suggested in the communique issued at the end of a 17-day OPEC meeting in October, and more OPEC members have supported it, however impractical it appears to oil analysts in the West.
The Soviets order Afghanistan’s Chairman of the Revolutionary Council Babrak Karmal to be removed from his last position of power in Afghanistan. At a meeting of the Soviet Politburo on 13 November 1986 it was decided that Mohammad Najibullah should remove Karmal; this motion was supported by Andrei Gromyko, Ambassado Yuli Vorontsov, Eduard Shevardnadze, Anatoly Dobrynin and Viktor Chebrikov. A People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) meeting in November relieved Karmal of his Revolutionary Council chairmanship, and exiled him to Moscow where he was given a state-owned apartment and a dacha. Karmal was succeeded as Revolutionary Council chairman by Haji Mohammad Tsamkani, who was not a member of the PDPA.
President J. R. Jayewardene of Sri Lanka and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India will hold talks in the southern Indian city of Bangalore on Saturday to see if they can persuade Tamil separatists fighting for an independent state in Sri Lanka to negotiate an end to the conflict. Mr. Jayewardene and Mr. Gandhi will meet before the start of a two-day meeting of leaders of seven southern Asian countries. Representatives of the major Tamil groups based in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu have turned down a Sri Lankan proposal for ending the fighting, which has taken more than 2,000 lives in the last 22 months. The conflict began a decade ago. After the rejection of the proposals, which would have given the Tamils a greater say in managing their own affairs through elected provincial councils, India cracked down on the offices and bases of the guerrillas in Tamil Nadu, briefly arresting their leaders.
India announced today that Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, would pay a four-day visit, beginning November 25. “Both sides attach great importance to the visit as a significant event in the shared objectives of both our countries and leaders to strengthen international peace and cooperation,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Deb Kumar Maitra, said.
A political leader who headed both a major leftist party and the nation’s largest labor union was found slain today, and party members immediately blamed the military for the killing. The country’s top military officials denied the accusation. The death of the leftist leader, Rolando Olalia, and his driver, complicated an already tense political situation for President Corazon C. Aquino as she returned to Manila after a four-day visit to Japan. Members of Mr. Olalia’s three-month-old political organization, the Party of the Nation, today called on supporters in a statement to “pour into the streets” in mass demonstrations.
Canada plans to lift the limited sanctions it imposed against the Soviet Union six years ago after Soviet troops swept into Afghanistan, because the sanctions have not worked, Joe Clark, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, has announced. Mr. Clark said Wednesday that the Government would meet with Soviet officials to renew scientific, technical, educational and cultural ties.
The Provisional Government said this week that it planned to replace most of its envoys worldwide because of their links to the deposed Duvalier dictatorship. Francois Latortue, who is Haiti’s Minister of Justice and acting Minister of Foreign Affairs. said the Government had temporarily suspended the entire ambassadorial corps. The Government said it was asking its 26 ambassadors abroad as well as its 11 consuls general to remain at their posts for the time being until they were “reappointed or replaced” in the next few weeks. “Most of them will be taken out because they are old Duvalier men,” Mr. Latortue said.
The foreign ministers of the Contadora Group nations — Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela and Panama-unveiled a document aimed at “the establishment of democracy” in Central America and an end to bitter regional fighting. Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Uruguay supported the initiative at a meeting of the Organization of American States in Guatemala City. “For a permanent peace to reign in Central America, there must be the establishment of democracy and pluralistic institutions and the respect for the basic rights of all citizens,” the draft document said. It would also restrict the right of the United States and other nations from freely acting in the region.
The Nicaraguan government indicated that it may pardon captured American mercenary Eugene Hasenfus for his role in supplying U.S.-backed contras with weapons. The Sandinista People’s Tribunal trying the American is expected to hand down a verdict and sentence today or Monday, according to attorneys in the case. “The question of whether to pardon will be a later decision” by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. “This is a country in which pardons have been given.” Defense attorney Enrique Sotelo Borgen said his client should be sentenced to no more than two years if found guilty.
No pardon for Eugene Hasenfus is likely soon, according to a pro-Government Nicaraguan newspaper article on the jailed American air cargo handler who helped supply the United States-backed rebels.
About 15,000 survivors returned to the desolate site of Colombia’s worst natural disaster to pay homage to the 23,000 who died under a volcanic avalanche of mud a year ago. The first anniversary of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano eruption was marked by a memorial Mass and a homily read by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo at the foot of a cement cross erected during the visit of Pope John Paul II last July.
El Salvador’s leftist guerrillas said they killed or wounded 50 government soldiers in heavy fighting in a 24-hour period. They also damaged two army helicopters with ground fire, the rebel Radio Venceremos said. The Salvadoran armed forces press office labeled the rebel report false and said there was a brief clash in Chalatenango province in which one guerrilla was killed. Local commanders reached by telephone said an operation is under way in the province.
The White House will propose important changes next year in the way the Government prepares the Federal budget, a process the Administration as well as its critics in Congress say has failed, according to officials. President Reagan’s most probable proposals include switching to a two-year budget to avoid the October crises of recent years. He is also expected to propose a separate budget to take better account of Federal investments in long-lived property, such as bridges and battleships, in the way business and many states and localities budget for their capital expenses, and to propose taking more account of inflation in calculating deficits. “Notwithstanding Democratic control of the Senate, there are very thoughtful people on both sides of the aisle, in both houses, as well as in the executive branch, who recognize that the system as it now exists is just not working,” said Alfred H. Kingon, the President’s Cabinet secretary. “No business, no state, no foreign government operates this way. The system is badly in need of repair.”
A report issued today by a Reagan Administration panel on the family asserts that “two liberal decades” frayed the fabric of American family life, bringing increased crime, illegitimate birth, drug use, teen-age pregnancy, divorce, sexually transmitted disease and poverty. A result of a seven-month study by the 22-member interdepartmental group, the report maintains that the Reagan Administration brought to a “crashing halt” the “anti-family agenda” of preceding years, initiating a “defense of the family” that has since become “fashionable.” According to Gary Bauer, Under Secretary of Education, who headed the panel, the report has been sent to the White House Domestic Policy Council, which will forward it to President Reagan after study and potential revision. The 64-page report, which Mr. Bauer discussed at a news conference today, is more descriptive than prescriptive and hews closely to conservative thinking on issues from abortion to welfare.
President Reagan participates in a meeting with U.S. Ambassadors to countries with significant narcotics production, trafficking, or consumption problems.
President Reagan participates in a photo opportunity with the Board Members of the White House Historical Association.
Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel warned that decreasing domestic oil production and greater reliance on Persian Gulf petroleum threaten the national security of the United States, and could set up a clash with the Soviet Union. In remarks before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Hodel said that support of “freedom fighters” in Marxist-dominated countries could serve as a deterrent to any Soviet aggression in the Persian Gulf. He said that the “United States is being set up for a major oil price shock” as U.S. production falls and consumption rises.
The Reagan Administration defended its plan for widespread testing of federal workers for drug use, although a federal court found the U.S. Customs Service’s program unconstitutional. A Justice Department spokesman said that the issue of testing federal employees ultimately will be decided by the Supreme Court, but a legal expert on drug testing said that the more sweeping White House plan is now under serious question because of the court’s decision
President Reagan ordered 21 U.S. ambassadors to tell foreign leaders that the United States “will not tolerate the use or supply of any illegal drugs any place, anytime.” Reagan, at a two-day White House conference on drugs, told the envoys: “We mean to have a drug-free country, and we mean business. … We want all nations to join with us in this and make it a global crusade.”
Citing increased violence along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, the United States Border Patrol is arming its agents with 1,000 Army M-14 assault rifles and will supply them with two armored personnel carriers, the Immigration and Naturalization Service said today. The M-14s will replace outdated pump-action rifles that many agents considered inadequate, said Duke Austin, a spokesman for the I.N.S. The guns will be available for encounters involving criminal activity when the patrol is alerted to fleeing fugitives or drug runners who sometimes are armed with automatic weapons.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration rejected requests by a number of news organizations for the release of pictures of the shuttle Challenger’s battered crew cabin taken on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean because the pictures would be “exceedingly disturbing” to the families of the seven astronauts who were aboard. Requests for the pictures, which reportedly show some of the seven crew members’ personal effects, were made under the Freedom of Information Act. However, the space agency cited Exemption 6 of the act, which says that release of medical and personal information “constitutes a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Laid out on a large grid, the barnacle-encrusted wreckage provided testimony to the aerodynamic forces that tore the shuttle apart on January 28, killing the seven astronauts.
A Federal grand jury today indicted the former Secretary of the State Department of Natural Resources in connection with helping to obtain a state oil lease for a company in which he had a secret interest. The official, William Huls, is charged with concealing his interest in the Exploration Company of Louisiana, which he founded with Marsden W. Miller Jr., who was also indicted.
Proposed Federal restrictions on lead in drinking water are insufficient to end the country’s “lead epidemic,” an environmental toxicologist said today. The expert, Dr. Ellen K. Silbergeld, senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the maximum permissible level of lead in drinking water should be cut to 10 parts per billion, half the standard proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. A recent report by the agency found that 40 million Americans drank water containing more than 20 parts per billion of lead, the proposed new standard. The new maximum levels are scheduled to be put into effect in 1988 but would not be enforceable by states until 18 months later.
Security clearances for 69 workers, including four in a security patrol, at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Richland, Washington, were revoked in the last two years because of alleged drug abuse, a top official said. Mike Lawrence, operations manager, said, however, that drug abuse is not a significant threat to safety at the reservation, which produces plutonium for nuclear weapons. A court document charges illegal drugs were hidden in radioactive areas and employees refused to cooperate in the probe.
A South Korean fishing boat captain was ordered held without bail in Anchorage on charges he assaulted a female observer with the National Marine Fisheries Service on the high seas. “Pretrial detention is an outrageous overstepping on the part of the government,” said Dan Dennis, attorney for the defendant, Lee Jung Silk, 34. The captain is accused of sexually harassing the U.S. observer from October 20 to October 27 and refusing to allow her to use her radio to call for help. The Coast Guard seized the vessel a week ago on charges of fishing in the U.S. 200-mile zone.
High immigration rates to the United States may leave whites of European origin in the minority a century from now, a private population group reported. Today’s low birth rates, coupled with immigration put at 1 million people annually-legal and illegal-could mean that Latinos, blacks and Asians will constitute more than half the U.S. population by the year 2080, the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau said in its report, “Immigration to the U.S.: The Unfinished Story.” Latinos were expected to make up 23.4% of the population, blacks 14.7% and Asians and other groups 12.1%.
Children hurt by war in 17 countries will tour 27 American cities and recount to young Americans the violence, terrorism and poverty they have suffered and spur them to work for world peace.
A Federal official who oversaw audits of the Wedtech Corporation, a Bronx military contractor, said yesterday that he was unaware the company had forged $6 million in invoices submitted to the Federal Government in 1981 and 1982. “I know nothing about it,” said the former official, Samuel J. Barkan, a supervisory auditor with the Defense Contract Audit Agency who retired in February. The company has acknowledged the forgeries. In a written statement issued last weekend, a Wedtech lawyer said the company had voluntarily disclosed the forgeries, which entitled the company to receive speeded-up payment from the Government on an Army contract, and that the audit agency had assured the company that it would not be prosecuted or penalized.
The country’s Roman Catholic bishops today adopted a pastoral letter declaring that current levels of poverty in the United States were “a social and moral scandal.” They said the Government must do much more to create jobs and help poor people. The 115-page document, in preparation for more than five years, said economic policies and proposals ought to be judged primarily in terms of how they affected poor people. The third draft of the pastoral letter was approved by a vote of 225 to 9 as the National Conference of Catholic Bishops concluded a four-day meeting here. The conference is the highest policy-making body for the country’s Roman Catholic Church, whose 52 million members constitute the largest denomination in the United States. The pastoral letter, despite overwhelming approval by the bishops, is controversial to many people, including conservatives who say it relies much too heavily on government to reduce poverty.
Raymond G. Hunthausen quietly left Washington for Seattle. The censured archbishop made a conciliatory statement thanking other bishops for listening to him discuss his struggle with the Vatican.
Freezing weather, which moved into the South, set low records in dozens of American cities, filled shelters for the homeless to overflowing and forced the cancellation of horse racing in Kentucky. “If you want to compare it to something, the high last year on this date was 79 degrees with a low of 61,” said Derrel Martin of the National Weather Service in Nashville, Tennessee, where it was 18 degrees yesterday morning. The cold chased many homeless people into shelters overnight and shelter workers in Atlanta scrambled for more blankets. In San Antonio, Texas, where the temperature dropped to 35 degrees, volunteers formed “blanket brigades” to make deliveries to transients, according to Jill Dwyer, executive director of Hope for the Homeless. With the temperature not expected to exceed the mid-20’s, Churchill Downs in Louisville canceled races. Tom Meeker, the Downs president, said the frozen track made it dangerous for horses and riders. It was the first time in 16 years that a frozen track forced the cancellation of racing at the track. The Weather Service said “an incredibly cold outbreak of Arctic air” from Canada was responsible for the cold that moved into the Plains, the Mississippi Valley, the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley before pushing on to the Southeast.
The American Motors Corporation, the perennial also-ran of the auto industry, could be headed either for a turnaround or for its last hurrah when it introduces a new line of midsize cars next fall. At a time when even the industry giant, General Motors, is retrenching, troubled A.M.C. is planning to increase production in a big way. The company sees this as its last chance: “We’re betting the bank on our new cars,” said Joseph E. Cappy, A.M.C.’s chief executive, who came over four years ago from the Ford Motor Company. “We can’t afford to make a mistake.” American Motors is expanding with a $675 million state-of-the-art assembly plant in Canada and a new line of midsize cars — to be named the Renault Premier and the Renault Medallion. Yet, for the company, which had only marginal success with such offbeat cars as the Gremlin and the Pacer, this is hardly a sure bet.
Revlon wants to acquire Gillette. The Revlon Group said it was seeking to buy all outstanding shares of the razor blade producer’s common stock at $65 a share, totaling more than $4 billion.
A Borg-Warner takeover effort stepped up as the GAF Corporation said it held 4.9 percent of the industrial complex plus an option to buy 4.7 percent more. An investor, Irwin L. Jacobs, owns 7.4 percent.
Giselle Jeanne-Marie LaRonde of Trinidad, 23, is crowned the 36th Miss World.
Major League Baseball:
Dave Stewart, who went 9–5 for his hometown A’s after being released by the Phillies in May, signs a 2-year contract with Oakland.
Speculators pulled out of many supposed takeover stocks yesterday, and the rest of the market fell with those stocks, giving Wall Street its worst drop in more than two weeks. The delicate balance that existed for weeks in the equity market was also upset by a severe weakening in the price of stock index futures. This caused investors to sell stocks in New York and to invest in index futures in Chicago, profiting from a difference between the markets. Traders said this was especially true during the afternoon, when investors began to worry about coming economic figures. The Government today is scheduled to release the latest retail sales, industrial production and producer price figures.The Dow Jones industrial average, after meandering for days, retreated 31.50 yesterday, to 1,862.20. The 1.7 percent decline was the blue-chip index’s worst defeat since September 25, when it fell nearly 35 points.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1862.20 (-31.50)
Born:
Wade Miley, MLB pitcher (All-Star, 2012; Arizona Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, Seattle Mariners, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, Houston Astros, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs), in Hammond, Louisiana.
Juan Pérez, Dominican MLB outfielder (World Series champions-Giants, 2014; San Francisco Giants), in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
Bryan Price, MLB pitcher (Cleveland Indians), in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Willie Smith, NFL tackle (Washington Redskins, Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers), in Smithfield, North Carolina.
José Jerí, Peruvian lawyer and politician and lawyer (President of Peru, 2025-2026; President of Congress, July-October, 2025), in Lima, Peru.
