The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 43

Tuesday Morning, December 25, i uesciay Morning, (Salueaton UaHnSfeiuo tillanears Havana; U.S. continues to monitor 1 1-C (AP) Five Soviet navy ships on Monday continued their slow trek to Cuba in what wts fhe NLv'v saa i athrOUUne Caribbean deptoyme! and the Navy said the communist governments were expected to conduct joint military exercises 1 he vessels, the second Soviet flotilla to enter the Cean hiS year were 15 mllefeast of Havana and moving west at 12 knots at middav Monday, said Lt. Cmdr. Craig Quielev a for the Norfolk, AtlanticSt SP keSman "Prom all reports to date it appears to be a routine deployment," said Quigley The two Soviet guided missile frigates a guided missile destroyer, a Tango-class diesel powered submarine and an oil tanker were about 130 miles south of Florida at midday, said Quigley fJOl la as ex ected to a in Havana on Saturday, in t.me to take part in ceremonies com- memorating the 26th anniversary of the communist takeover in Cuba, he said. The' vessels should remain in Caribbean for about a month, he said "Right now they're still moving (about 12 knots) Iney re still going west, but they can anchor out at any point or they could get into port early Quielev said.

6 "Historically, they've gone into anchor for a couple of days prior to their entry to the port to clean up the ships after the transit from the Atlantic," he said. The flotilla is the 24th Soviet military voyage to the Caribbean since 1969. The Navy frigate USS Vreeland, based in Mayport, was tracking the foreign vessels "and will remain in international waters. When they get into Cuban waters we'll stay out," said Quigley. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger also said the Pentagon would closely monitor the Soviet ships But Pentagon spokesman Lt.

Cmdr. John Woodhouse refused to say how, or comment Monday on whether U.S. submarines also were in the area On ABC's "This Week with David Brinkley" show Sunday, Weinberger was asked if the flotilla represented anything more than routine maneuvers "We don't know," he replied. "That close to the continental United States, of course, we have to keen a very close watch," Quigley said it was unlikely the Soviet vessels would be conducting any military maneuvers prior to their arrival in Cuba. "If they conduct exercies with the Cubans they would do it after the first port visits," Quigley said If they participate in any exercises while they're in the Caribbean, it would be to learn how to operate jointly with the The Navy learned of the Soviet voyage through a Dec.

18 article in the Soviet newspaper Pravda that said the ships would take part in Cuba Liberation Day, the anniversary of Fide) Castro's January 1959 takeover, Quigley said. The Soviet ships were maintaining a "standard steaming formation" roughly in the shape of a diamond, said Quigley. The frigates Zadornyy and Razitelnyy are designed for anti-submarine warfare, said Quigley. Each is about 400 feet long, about the size of the Mayport-based Vreeland. The Otlichnny is a 500-foot-long destroyer, he said.

The last such Soviet voyage to the Caribbean was in March and April, when the helicopter carrier Leningrad was in the area, Quigley said. Scientists prepare to view artificial comet launching AP Lascrphoto While Christmas A blind woman crunches through a snow-covered intersection in downtown Des Moines on Christmas eve. Early morning flurries covered the ground and cold temperatures promised a white Christmas for the city. Only a few last-minute shoppers are evident LOS ANGELES (AP) Scientists from Tahiti to New Mexico prepared Monday to watch a satellite-launched artificial comet Christmas Day, hoping for clear skies to allow a good view of the spectacle 70,160 miles above the Earth. "Whatever you see in the sky it's not what you've been drinking, it's real," said astrophysicist Mario Acuna of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

-We are ready. I have no indication of any "difficulties." The man-made comet is scheduled to appear at 4:18 a.m. PST Tuesday, created from a cloud of barium vapor released from a West German satellite above the Pacific Ocean off South America. It should be visible 20 to 40 degrees above the southeast horizon throughout the western United States, southwestern Canada and northern Mexico, west of a line roughly running from Hudson Bay through Chicago to Mexico City. It also should be visible from Hawaii and Tahiti.

Scientists have said that people watching from dark areas should be able to see the comet for up to 10 minutes with the naked eye. up to 20 minutes with 7xoO-power bin- Svetlana moves to her father's native Georgia LONDON (AP) Svetlana Alliluyeva. the daughter of Josef Stalin who returned to the Soviet Union 17 years after delecting to the West, has moved to her father's native Georgia, the Times of London reported Monday. The newspaper said she was accompanied by her 13-year-old. American-born daughter.

Olga. Quoting unidentified sources in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, the Times said a residence permit for the two had been granted and the authorizing letter read at a recent meeting of the local Tbilisi Communist Party chapter. Miss Alliluyeva and her daughter, who went to Moscow in October and lived in a hotel there, "have been allocated a flat in a prestige block reserved for Georgian VIPs." the newspaper said. oculars and up to an hour through telescopes. They said it should start out appearing the size of a star, with a red-yellow center and greenish tinge, then grow within two minutes so it appears one-sixth the diameter of the moon with a purple-gray color.

It may develop a long tail, which probably will be visible only through telescopes. The artificial comet launch is part of a $78 million U.S.- British-West German study of the interaction between Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind, a hot, electrically charged gas or "plasma" speeding from the sun at nearly 1 million mph. "It should be fun to watch," Acuna said Monday in a telephone interview from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "It should provide plenty o'f conversation for tomorrow's parties." A real comet consists of a frozen ball of dust and gas trailing a tail of loose atoms and particles. The man-made version is composed of a cloud of barium a metallic element used in another form to make the digestive tract visible under X-rays.

The sun will energize the barium atoms and make them radiate colored light. Acuna said scientists around the world were making final prepara- tions to watch or monitor the comet through an array of ground- based telescopes and tracking stations, from two airplanes and through sensors aboard the West German satellite and its sister U.S. and British satellites. Christmas Day was chosen for the launch mainly because it provided optimum conditions for ground and satellite observation. If bad weather forces a delay, the comet will be launched at 4:32 a.m.

PST Thursday. If that fails, it will be postponed to July, when the three satellites again are in proper position. Acuna said teams from West Germany's Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics spent Monday adjusting telescopes, television cameras and other equipment at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, and at observatories atop Mauna Kea on Hawaii. Haleakala on Maui and El Leoncito in Argentina. Other last-minute preparations were underway at Goddard.

the U.S. Science Data Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the West German satellite operations center near Munich and NASA's worldwide Deep Space Network of tracking stations. TV. Y. police search for subway gunman NEW YORK (AP) Saying "vigilantes are not heroes." Mayor Edward Koch on Monday sought to reassure subway riders as police hunted for a gunman who shot four young men on a train and then fled into the tunnels after telling a conductor they had tried to rob him.

"We will not permit people to take the law into their own hands," Koch said at a briefing for reporters with Transit Police Chief James Median and Police Commissioner Benjamin Added Ward: "This is the real world. It's not Alice in Wonderland. We don't want to start a panic among our public based on what one person does." Two of the four victims were hit in the chest and (wo in the back. All were expected to live, but one suffered a damaged spinal cord and was paralyzed from the waist down, hospital officials said. On Sunday, Koch ordered some 1.350 extra regular police officers to add subway stations to their patrols and reassigned officers of the separate Transit Police force to patrol trains only.

But he said Monday that was an effort to reassure crowds of holiday travelers and shoppers and get them to take trains instead of driving, not in response to Saturday's shootings. "You encourage people to use the subways especially at late hours, which is what" holiday revelry generally involves." Koch said. Police distributed fliers with a police sketch of the gunman and made announcements over train loudspeakers in both English and Spanish in an effort to find witnesses to the shootings. After the midafternoon shooting, which occurred as the train was approaching the Chambers Street station in lower Manhattan, the gunman helped two women who had fallen and spoke with a conductor before fleeing. Police say there were about a dozen people in the car at the time, but only a few have come forward.

According to an investigator, the conductor asked the gunman if he was a policeman and the man said, "No. They tried to rip me off." Ward appealed for news media restraint in reporting on the shootings, referring to published accounts comparing the case to the movie "Death Wish," which portrays a modern-day vigilante. Police issued a 13-state alarm for the gunman, who was described as 25 to 30 years old, of medium height with golden blond hair and wearing gold-rimmed glasses. Deputy Chief Richard Dillon, head of Manhattan detectives, said police had taken statements from three of the four victims. He said one was not cooperating.

"Their statements are not totally inconsistent with what the trainman" told police. Dillon said. "Whether it was a robbery or an extortion or an infringement upon another person's right to sit there, we have those kinds of statements." Edward Canty. 48, whose 19- year-old son Troy was in critical condition with a chest wound, told the New York Post: "They asked him for $5 to play video games but he got scared and started blasting." Houston marchers call for an end to apartheid policies HOUSTOX APi State Rep. Al Edwards, D-Houston vowing to support a boycott of American corporations that do business in bourn Africa led a group of about 300 chanting marchers on a prayer walk through downtown Monday, calling for an end to that country apartheid policies.

The marchers stopped to be led in prayer in front of Texas Commerce Bank and the IBM building, two corporations Edwards said were among those targeted for boycott -We won't drink Coke, we'll drink Pepsi, we won't buy from General Motors, we'll buy Chrysler products or we'll walk Edwards said during the mid-day march. "This should send a message to all people to get involved in this protest because it is more than just a race issue." Edwards said he has introduced pre-filed legislation asking state agencies that make investments to divest themselves of interests in corporations doing business in South Africa "This march should be a signal to all people to get involved because this is not just a race issue." Edwards said. "Coroorations are pulling out of this country and going to use cheap slave labor in Africa so the American worker is losing Edwards said he had a lengthy list of U.S. corporations that are involved in business dealings with South Africa "Ifs not just the black worker." Edwards said. "There are more wh.es on welfare than blacks.

This should be a message to the white worker that he had better get involved Organizers had predicted 3.000 to 5.000 marchers would participate in the demonstration but Edwards said he was pleased with the turnout. "I thought we'd have much less but the number is not that important, he said. "We are assembled here in God's name and we are depending on Him to help solve the problems in South Africa I he Rev. F.N. Wiihams.

a march organizer, said the march also as to gam support for assisting famine-torn Ethiopia "This is one of the greatests seasons and we have a ereat reason, Williams said. One marcher carried a sign which read "Praver Walk for lght A artheid eed Ethiopia." Another read -We rotest Hunger in Ethiopia and Apartheid in South Africa illiams criticized the apartheid policies of South Africa and the policy of b.S. corporations that manufacture products in that country because of cheap labor. "Blacks here are denied jobs because they (U.S. companies) go there to get cheap labor," Williams said.

"We are going to build a prayer wall around South Africa." The 12-block march started at the University of Houston's downtown campus and ended at Tranquility Park where Williams asked demonstrators to leave their signs for future use "We mav be using them again." Williams said. N. Ireland's onetime most-wanted terrorist convicted, gets life RRLFAST Mnrthprn Ireland BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) Dominic McGlinchey, once the most wanted man in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, was convicted Monday of murdering a policeman's mother. McGlinchey, 30, chief of staff of the outlawed Irish National Liberation Army, stared at the ceiling of Belfast's Crown Court as Justice James Hutton sentenced him to life in prison for killing Hester McMullen, 63, in 1977. He had pleaded innocent to the murder charge in the no-jury, anti-terrorist tribunal.

Hutton presided over the two-week trial and rendered the verdict and sentence in a 40-minute judgment. Joe Rice, McGlinchey's attorney, said he would appeal the conviction. McGlinchey, dubbed "mad dog" by his comrades, boasted of killing 30 people since 1972. He was the first Roman Catholic extradited on terrorist charges from Irish Republic to British-ruled I Northern Ireland. McGlinchey was captured with three lieutenants in a hideout on Ireland's west coast on March 17 after a Shootout with 40 police.

He was extradited to less than 18 hours later. Hutton noted McGlinchey's fingerprints were found on a commandeered getaway car abandoned after Mrs. McMullen's home at Too'mebridge, County Antrim, was sprayed with gunfire by an Irish Republican Army gang in March 1977. "It would be a coincidence beyond the realms of reasonable possibility for the fingerprints to have been put on the car on some occasion other than when the terrorist gang were making their getaway," he said. As McGlinchey was led away to begin his sentence at the Maze Prison, he nodded and waved to relatives in the courtroom.

Prosecutor Ronald Appleton said McGlinchey signed affidavits in the Irish Republic in 1982 saying he was an IRA member from 1971-77 and was on active duty for the IRA in Northern Ireland in March 1977. The IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army, a Marxist offshoot, are fighting to end British rule In Northern Ireland and unite the mainly Protestant province with the overwhelmingly Catholic Irish Republic. McGlinchey told an Irish journalist in a clandestine interview last year he killed 30 people and took part in more than 200 guerrilla bombings and shootings. Also Monday, a three-judge appeals court overturned the convictions of 14 men jailed for terrorism last year on the word of Protestant informer Joseph Bennett. Only four men were set free.

The rest were returned to police custody to face other charges. The decision came six days after another trial of terrorist suspects ended with a judge acquitting all 35 defendants of more than 180 charges, all based on the word of a single informer.The judge in that trial. Lord Lowry. dismissed the informer's testimony as "entirely unworthy of belief." Lowry. who also sat on the appeals court panel, ruled Monday that the judge in the original trials ruled improperly concerning the credibility of Bennett, an admitted member of the outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force, a Protestant paramilitary group.

However, Lowry said the law regarding such evidence remained unchanged, that courts may accept uncorroborated evidence from terrorist accomplices if there is substantial reason to do so. Good Morning!.