April 1986

4/2/86

E Eur’s economies all in lousy shape & most pay excessive rates for Soviet oil...

1st terrorist retaliation for Libyan attacks...bomb on a TWA plane--4 dead.

Desmond Tutu called for punitive sanctions.

Oil exports have been 75% of Soviet hard currency earnings.

Trade in oil = 15% value of world trade

4/3/86

The ANC is talking of setting up alternative centers of power in the townships to complement ungovernability.

US sending Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to rebels Angola & Afghanistan through CIA. Should the US really be in the business of killing Russians?

The Shah of Iran & Israel were working on missile devt

4/4/86

Marcos interview: Now claims he was kidnapped by US


4/6/86

US is looking for a Libyan terrorist “master plan” to justify military action.

4/8/86

Chester Crocker: white S Africans would resist reform as long as they felt threatened. Of course, they’ll be threatened as long as they don’t reform. And of course, for them reform is a threat.

Unita claims that ANC is fighting alongside the MPLA

When will the US admit that its intentions are not actually to overthrow enemies but to drain their resources, that what RR precisely does want in Nicaragua is another Cuba?

A nuclear test was postponed because of weather. Admin immediately said they were not giving in to anybody. This is the last test allowed by USSR w/out resuming its tests. Greenpeace (which trying to block the test) says the wind is blowing the opposite way that US said, but then Greenpeace is claiming it stopped the test.

Contadora broke down. Nicaragua refused to stop arming as long as US supported contras

Libya claims 56 dead from Sirte confrontation

Australia will not involve itself in Star Wars

Meese holds Arafat responsible for some terrorism, & will pursue him through courts. Ha, ha.

Thatcher calling for order in NI. Why is order more important than justice?

4/9/86

Mexico’s election fixing has gotten increasingly blatant 1980s

1st time, US selling top of line technologies to groups, not states, in Angola, Afghanistan

Algeria breeches the “deniability” barrier--US gives Soviet & Ch. weapons so can be denied when weapons captured.

Aid to Savimbi through Zaire not SA

4/11/86

US deciding whether to strike Libya. RR is out riding (hint, hint). Qadaffi threatening southern Eur if attacked. EC worried. Libya accused of a bombing of a night club in Berlin frequented by Amers, & a TWA plane.

Calif. considering bill that parents of minors be informed & consent to abortion

4/12/86

Evidently, under Marcos, the Amer. bases in Phil. were under a veto power as to their use. Not involved, for ex., in strikes on N Vietnam. He saw their only purpose as defense of Phil.

4/13/86

Winnie Mandela seems to be calling for civil war, not excluding killing of “collaborators”

4/14/86

US bombed Tripoli. Injured some of Qaddafi’s family and his home. “Terrorist targets.” Fr embassy hit. Used Br bases, but Fr refused over-flight. Easier than cooperating w/other nations, huh?

John Le Carré: “true English privilege was obtained by hardship, and that the best hardship was to be found at English boarding schools.”

RR portrayed action as preemptive against future terrorist acts. Ridiculous.
-VOA calling for Libyan people to overthrow Q.
-What the hell is a terrorist airstrip?
-Why was all this terrorist stuff on the coast?

4/15/86

US failed to use Security Council re Libya

Contras have smuggled drugs into US

100 claimed dead in Libya inc Q’s adopted daughter (15 mos)

4/16/86

John Le Carré: “Magnus follows politics like a gambler who is too wise to bet.”

4/18/86

3 kidnapped Britons killed in retaliation for attack on Libya. A bomb found at Heathrow for El Al

Eur Parl condemned US raid on Libya.

USSR says US lied when said it could have restrained Qadafi

Mugabe says the Lancaster House const of Zimbabwe must be changed w/in next yr--abolition of guaranteed white seats [and so he did, c.May87]

More violence NI

SA ambassador Beukes makes a good case for hypocrisy by Tutu, who called 1 yr ago for no influx control, invest. in black ed., end to denationaliz & to forced removals or he would call for sanctions. Moves made on all those but Tutu still called for sanctions

Part of Zimbabwe’s changes will be toward greater nat. unity, i.e., one-party state further entrenched

There is a serious EEC-US trade war after Brussels adopted protections of farm products to ease transition to EC by Spain & Port.

9 Southern & border states to unify primaries (in March)--effect should be centrist Dem.
-Hart says will mean a lot of running around & making “rally speeches” instead of “substantive” speeches

The Punjab’s new police chief vows 4 dead for every cop killed by Sikh extremists

The NSC evidently drafted a press release on the death of Qadaffy before the raid
-Schultz admits purpose was to provoke a coup

Libyan gov keeping populace in check, presumably to keep foreigners in Libya alive

SA gov will stop enforcing pass laws next week. Uniform system, extending the control w/out discrimination

4/19/86

US Senate will probably bar RR from a free trade zone w/Canada

7-11 evidently gives in to Fundamentalist boycott, stopped selling Playboy, etc

Le Carré: “In life, says Proust, we end up doing whatever we do second best.”

VP Salvador Laurel, of all people, demanding early Philippines elections. Move against Aquino’s amateur followers?

4/20/86

A group called Nancy’s Against Contra Aid, all dressed in red

AT&T will eliminate contact w/SA

Now Switz has frozen Duvalier’s accounts

The Fr decision not to allow US overflight on the way to bomb Libya seems to have inc Chirac
-US Cong. leaders not briefed until planes on their way

Use of Cal. Nat Guards in Honduras a way for RR to sidestep need for congressional approval

The decision on whether to abide by SALT II is being made now

Amers. approve raid on Libya, though they think it will--> increased terrorism. Rationale??

We’re having virtually to abandon all US positions in Sudan to prevent “another Teheran”

D of Energy has proposed reservation of the Menominee Indians (Wisc.) as nuclear dump site

Repubs intro a bill to give Pres. right to respond to terrorism w/out consulting Cong. in advance
Inc assassination of a head of state (says Denton)

VOA has called for Libyan people to rise against Q or they will bear collective responsibility for his actions


4/21/86

The Synthetic Fuels Corps is closed down

13% of US adults illiterate in English inc 9% whose native lang is Eng

US will comply w/SALT II by dismantling Trident

4/23/86

Another Brit killed in Lebanon--for Libyan raid

A London Times reporter claimed a 5-man junta, inc Qaddafi, now runs Libya (meaning?)

Israel may have a connection to a ring to sell arms to Iran--inc a retired Israeli general

NASA wasted billions, an audit says. The press seems to think this is news.

Jörg Rechmann of the Frankfurter Rundschau (April 4): “If counterterrorism takes the place of diplomacy, then the extremists will have achieved their goal, and terrorism will have triumphed.”

New security laws proposed for SA sweeping. On same day as pass laws abolished

4/24/86

Admin: a test ban would encourage other nations to dev weapons. Because of decreased credibility of US deterrent

EP Thompson: American hegemonic nationalism “consists, not in the assertion of the superior virtues of the (German/British/Japanese) race, but in the pretence that America is not a race of nation at all but is the universal Future.”

A bomb exploded in London at Br Airways (Thatcher must be forced to do something soon)

An ANC rep on McNeil-Lehrer seemed unable to make any good pt against the abolition of the Pass Laws exc ones of ANC self-interest

RR talked to Mrs Aquino for first time. By phone. On aid

4/25/86

Green revo in India in wheat matched by decline in growth rate of race

Chester Crocker was trapped into agreeing w/Solarz that ANC were freedom fighters. Since, however, it said “that any group that is supported by the Soviet Union does not have freedom as one of its objectives--and so we would not agree that the ANC are freedom fighters.” Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
-Of course this means that any group sponsored by US are, and so we should fund contras because they are freedom fighters because we support them.

The French did indeed support hitting Libya harder. They have a point: all or nothing instead of pinpricks.

Gov talking of banning immigration of those w/AIDS

Despite abolition of pass laws, residential areas still segregated. And 8m citizens of 4 homelands not affected
-Under new SA security law, Louis Le Grange would wield vast powers unquestioned by courts

60% of union contracts signed last 3 mos inc pay freezes or cuts

Indonesia has banned 10 reporters, inc one of NYT, from RR’s trip there (other 9 are Aussies). If I were RR, I wouldn’t go to such a country, but Suharto’s only doing what RR dreams of

Libyan order to reporters to leave was retraced--just Amers. & EECers

Senate panels oppose arms sales to Saudi Arabia--but RR can veto (and be over-ridden by 2/3)

Ohio’s law on informing parents of minors of abortions overturned by Fed district court

4/26/86

A study was ordered for a new missile

Craxi & Kohl pissed that RR says they priv. supported him on Libya raid

Hialeah, Fla. decided to send guns to the Contras--can they do that?

There are more black-owned autos in SA than there are privately-owned cars in USSR

4/27/86

Some Korean students set themselves on fire. I thought just Vietnamese did that

4/28/86


A major nuclear incident in USSR [Chernoyl]
-Radiation in Stockholm 2X normal, Finland 6X. So big that Moscow tv had to report it

The head of Afghanistan is missing, possibly in USSR

RR told Marcos to stop making trouble

Someone has invented bulletproof wheat

The US, despite criticism of Chile, accepts 1989 as earliest possible date for elections


4/29/86

RR in Indonesia refused to criticize Suharto

How many dead in USSR? Russia says 2, UPI says 2,100
-Accompanied by a graphite fire, so probably a meltdown
-In Poland, milk from cows grazed on open grass prohibited

Admin officials admitted that Suharto banning of some reporters who’ve written unpleasing things about him might take the edge off his “winds of freedom” speech


4/30/86

State Dept gave approval for the “United States Council for World Freedom”, i.e., a private anti-Communist organiz--to send a UH-1B Huey Helicopter to the Contras--for humanitarian assistance--the license doesn’t permit to be used in Honduras or be armed. Sure.