The August 4, 1981 was a Tuesday under the star sign of ♌. It was the 215 day of the year. President of the United States was Ronald Reagan.
If you were born on this day, you are 44 years old. Your last birthday was on the Monday, August 4, 2025, 331 days ago. Your next birthday is on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, in 33 days. You have lived for 16,402 days, or about 393,651 hours, or about 23,619,089 minutes, or about 1,417,145,340 seconds.
4th of August 1981 News
News as it appeared on the front page of the New York Times on August 4, 1981
REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: INSULATING A PRESIDENT
Date: 05 August 1981
By Howell Raines, Special To the New York Times
Howell Raines
The United States withdrew $28 million in foreign aid from 12 poor countries today, and President Reagan celebrated the saving by appearing briefly in the Rose Garden with Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. and M. Peter McPherson, head of the Agency for International Development. The three men posed for photographers with a large green bank draft made out to ''U.S. taxpayers, c/o President Ronald Reagan.'' Then, taking Mr. Haig in tow, Mr. Reagan turned to Mr. McPherson and said amiably, ''We leave and they may have some questions for you.'' So, Mr. Reagan was back in the Oval Office when reporters pressed Mr. McPherson, forcing him to acknowledge that one-third of the $28 million could have been legally redirected to feed hungry people. Later Mr. McPherson lowered his estimate by half.
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K.G.B.'S EXPERTISE IN 'DISINFORMNG' THE WEST
Date: 04 August 1981
To the Editor: Mr. Rositzke, unknowingly perhaps, engages in a bit of ''disinformation'' of his own on K.G.B. operations when he doubts that Soviet disinformation activities in America's media exist or that they would serve any purpose if they did. v. ho are the ''reliable Soviet sources'' referred to sometimes in newspaper reports, from Moscow or in the West? What is the purpose of the activities of the Soviet foreign-publishing house, Novosti, and indeed of Tass correspondents in interviews with prominent Americans (especially scholars) if it isn't to disseminate various pieces of disinformation? A cardinal example of this was a New York Times interview, in August 1980, with General Milshtein, a former (or continuing) official of G.R.U. (military intelligence). In the interview, Milshtein denied that the Soviets ever advocated, for the consumption of their own soldier-readers of official military texts, a doctrine of winning and surviving a nuclear war.
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News Analysis
Date: 05 August 1981
By Stuart Taylor Jr., Special To the New York Times
Stuart Taylor
Although unions and libertarians have long asserted that employees have a moral right to strike against private and public employers alike, it has been firmly established since a 1971 Supreme Court decision that they have no legal right to strike against the Federal Government. In a statement echoed today by the American Civil Liberties Union, Lane Kirkland, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said that air traffic controllers and other ''working people'' had ''a basic human right, the right to withdraw their services, not to work under conditions they no longer find tolerable.'' But Mr. Kirkland and leaders of the air traffic controllers' union acknowledge the illegality of the strike by the controllers, who are employees of the Federal Aviation Administration. Congress has never extended the right to strike to government employees, and since the 1940's it has prohibited strikes against the Federal Government, subjecting striking Federal employees both to dismissal and to criminal prosecution.
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News Analysis
Date: 05 August 1981
By Steven V. Roberts, Special To the New York Times
Steven Roberts
As Congress passed the final version of the tax bill today and its members left town for a five-week recess, the lawmakers could look back on an extraordinary session. Under the whip hand of a popular and persuasive President, Congress took a long step toward reversing the steady expansion of Government services and responsibilities that started with the New Deal almost 50 years ago. But, while President Reagan has towered over Capitol Hill for the last six months, his domination when Congress returns in September is by no means guaranteed. The full story of the 97th Congress remains to be written, and many important questions, political and substantive, remain unanswered.
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News Summary; WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1981
Date: 05 August 1981
International A protest continued in Warsaw untroubled by the police. A column of buses and trucks blocked a key downtown intersection for a second day, and the independent labor union staged two brief strikes and a march in southern Poland, all in protest against food shortages. (Page A1, Column 3.) A Soviet Baltic fleet exercise was confirmed by the Defense Department. It said there seemed to be no link to the situation in Poland and that the amphibious fleet was apparently preparing for landing maneuvers. Pentagon officials said the fleet was capable of carrying more than 4,000 Soviet troops. (A8:1-4.)
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News Summary; TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1981
Date: 04 August 1981
International A Warsaw protest over food shortages turned into a confrontation between the Polish authorities and the Solidarity labor union. The police halted a column of buses and trucks bearing flags and placards in the center of the capital and the independent union's spokesman warned that if force was used to break up the demonstration, an immediate strike would be called. (Page A1, Columns 1-2.) An accord on a Sinai peace force was signed by Egypt and Israel. The agreement establishes a 2,500-member international force in the peninsula to police the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The United States will provide nearly half of the force. (A1:1.)
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OPERA: SANTA FE REVIVES HINDEMITH 'NEWS OF DAY'
Date: 04 August 1981
By Donal Henahan
Donal Henahan
act opera ''News of the Day,'' which was first performed in Berlin in 1929, was revived Saturday night by the Santa Fe Opera. John Crosby's enterprising company, which gave the work its American premiere in 1961 with the composer conducting, staged it again in 1964. In New York, ''News of the Day'' was most recently heard in 1979 at the Manhattan School of Music, which Mr. Crosby heads, and it apparently enchanted some critics. Well, tastes in musical humor do differ. It is possible that Hindemith's heavyhanded attempts at parodying his contemporaries, including Weill, Strauss and Korngold, might provide a fleeting snicker or two. It is possible, even likely, that some listeners might be amused to hear Hindemith putting to work in the service of humor his formidable ability to compose textbook canons and fugues. If you are interested in Hindemith, ''News of the Day'' is as interesting as most of his music, which is hearty, banal stuff whether he is being serious or trying to commit jokes.
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INTREPID ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER
Date: 05 August 1981
Special to the New York Times
Ariel Sharon, Israel's new Defense Minister, is a retired general who won military fame in the 1950's and early 1970's by leading fierce reprisal raids against Arab villages and refugee camps in Jordan and Gaza. As a political figure, Mr. Sharon, known to israelis as Arik, has served as Prime Minister Menachem Begin's Agriculture Minister and the Cabinet's staunchest advocate of an aggressive settlement policy in the occupied West Bank, which is administered by the Israeli Army. As Defense Minister, Mr. Sharon will have direct jurisdiction over the occupied areas, where the last Begin Government established 165 settlements in four years. ''Arik Sharon is a great strategist,'' Ezer Weizman, his predecessor as Defense Minister, wrote in his book on the Egyptian-Israeli moves toward peace. ''In war, I'd follow him through fire and flood, but political life has different values.'' Mr. Begin has held the defense portfolio since Mr. Weizman resigned last year.
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ACF Increases Bid For Ladish Shares
Date: 05 August 1981
The contest for control of the Ladish Company intensified yesterday when ACF Industries raised its previous tender offer for all of Ladish's common shares. ACF, a diversified manufacturer based in New York, said it would offer $3,000 a share in cash, or 64 shares of ACF, for each share of Ladish subject to a maximum on the cash portion of the offer. The total indicated value of the offer is about $324 million.
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MILITANT CONTROLLER CHIEF: ROBERT EDMOND POLI
Date: 04 August 1981
By Jonathan Fuerbringer, Special To the New York Times
Jonathan Fuerbringer
Robert E. Poli, the union president who has taken the nation's air controllers out on strike, had to fight his way to the job where he would challenge the Reagan Administration and face the possibility of being sent to jail and fined thousands of dollars. To reach the top of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, Mr. Poli (pronounced POH-lye) pulled off something of a coup early last year, leaving a friend and former union president, John Leyden, out of a job. Both Mr. Poli, then executive vice president of the organization, and Mr. Leyden resigned at a union executive board meeting in Chicago in a policy dispute that revolved, in part, around complaints that Mr. Leyden had not been militant enough in his negotiations with the Government. The board accepted Mr. Leyden's resignation but refused to accept Mr. Poli's. He took over as interim president and was elected to a full, three-year term in April 1980.
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