The December 4, 1985 was a Wednesday under the star sign of ♐. It was the 337 day of the year. President of the United States was Ronald Reagan.
If you were born on this day, you are 40 years old. Your last birthday was on the Thursday, December 4, 2025, 204 days ago. Your next birthday is on Friday, December 4, 2026, in 160 days. You have lived for 14,814 days, or about 355,536 hours, or about 21,332,170 minutes, or about 1,279,930,200 seconds.
4th of December 1985 News
News as it appeared on the front page of the New York Times on December 4, 1985
NEWS SUMMARY: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1985
Date: 04 December 1985
International Winnie Mandela vowed vengeance for the blood of fallen South African blacks at what she said was the first mass rally she had addressed in 25 years. Mrs. Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist who is the wife of the imprisoned nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, broke an officially imposed silence shortly after a mass funeral for 12 people slain by the police in a black township. [Page A1, Column 6.] Robert C. McFarlane is leaving the Reagan Administration, White House officials said. They said the Administration was actively seeking a replacement for Mr. McFarlane, who has been the White House national security adviser since 1983. [A1:2.]
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THE NEW SKIPPER; JOHN MARLASN POINDEXTER
Date: 05 December 1985
By Michael R. Gordon, Special To the New York Times
Michael Gordon
At a White House news conference today, Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter was asked if the press would ever see him again. ''Maybe,'' he replied and the remark drew general laughter. Admiral Poindexter, whom President Reagan named as his national security adviser today, has shunned publicity and press contacts since he joined the staff of the National Security Council in 1981. Since 1983 he has served as the deputy to Robert C. McFarlane and has been been known as an insider's insider. But those who know him decribe him as intelligent, extremely hard working, politically conservative and personable.
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Bouncing Down The Long Road
Date: 05 December 1985
By Thomas Rogers
Thomas Rogers
To Joe Rhodes, a freelance writer from Shreveport, La., the road to the Final Four is more than just a figure of speech, and it is a very long road indeed. He has embarked on a college basketball odyssey that began three weeks ago, when Kentucky played host to the Czechoslovak national team, and will not end until after the last big weekend of the N.C.A.A. championship tournament. In between are appointments to see 150 games - an average of better than one a night, what with doubleheaders - on a journey that will crisscross the country for a total of 25,000 miles.
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2 Yankees Honored
Date: 04 December 1985
Two Yankee sluggers, Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield, got some postseason windfalls yesterday when they were cited for their outstanding fielding performances. In voting conducted by The Sporting News among coaches and managers, the two were named by the newspaper to the American League's Gold Glove team, and in accordance with provisions in their Yankee contracts, Winfield will get a $25,000 bonus and Mattingly will receive $15,000. Ron Guidry, the Yankee pitcher, and Keith Hernandez, the Met first baseman, also won Gold Glove awards, but their contracts contain no incentive clauses keyed to the award.
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NAVY EXTENDING DEADLINE ON BID TO BUILD 4 SUBS
Date: 05 December 1985
By Richard Halloran, Special To the New York Times
Richard Halloran
The Navy today ''extended indefinitely'' a deadline for bids to build four nuclear-powered attack submarines in an effort to keep General Dynamics in the competition. A spokesman said that otherwise, the contract would have to be awarded on the basis of a bid from a single company, Newport News Shipbuilding. The Navy suspended General Dynamics from receiving any new Government contracts Tuesday, the day after the corporation and four executives were indicted on fraud charges. One of those indicted, James M. Beggs, now the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, took a leave of absence from that job today. [Page D30.] Amid uncertainty and confusion, senior officials at the Defense Department suggested today that the suspension would be lifted before production of vital arms was affected.
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Circulation Audit Issue
Date: 04 December 1985
By Philip H. Dougherty
Philip Dougherty
EARLIER this week The Des Moines Register became the second Gannett newspaper company to quit the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the 71-year-old body that authenticates the claims of publishers. And the fact that the public relations contact on the news release was Charles L. Overby, at Gannett headquarters in Virginia, rather than anyone in Des Moines, lends credibility to the thought expressed by some in the industry that the resignations of two of the 86 Gannett newspaper members is a power play aimed at getting the tripartite organization to change some of its rules in order that they may be easier on circulation claims being made by Gannett's USA Today national newspaper. The first Gannett resignation, that of The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and Times-Union earlier this fall, followed that of The Toronto Globe and Mail, a non-Gannett paper. All publishers are giving the same reasons for quitting, that A.B.C.'s procedures are ''outdated and outmoded.''
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DUTCH AFFIRM A DECISION TO DROP 2 NATO NUCLEAR COMBAT TASKS
Date: 04 December 1985
By Richard Bernstein, Special To the New York Times
Richard Bernstein
The Dutch Defense Minister said today that despite opposition from other NATO members, his Government planned to stick to a decision to end its obligation to carry out two specific tasks in the event of war. The Dutch decision to give up fighter-bomber and antisubmarine combat roles was criticized by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and other defense ministers here for a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The meeting ended here today, one day ahead of schedule.
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New Spy Charges Due For West Coast Suspect
Date: 04 December 1985
Special to the New York Times
Jerry A. Whitworth, a retired Navy communications specialist accused of espionage, is expected to be indicted next week on additional counts of espionage, his lawyer said today. The lawyer, Jim Larson, said four new counts would be derived from grand jury testimony given this week by John A. Walker, another Navy veteran who has pleaded guilty to directing a Soviet spy ring.
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NEWSPAPER'S COVERAGE OF SEX-CRIME TRIALS SPLITS A TOWN IN WASHINGTON
Date: 05 December 1985
By Wallace Turner, Special To the New York Times
Wallace Turner
A 16-year-old high school student who was raped here in March said later she felt she had been victimized three times -once by the rapist, once by testifying at the trial at which he was convicted and once in a 3,000-word account of the trial in The Shelton Mason County Journal. Much of the article was based on the student's testimony in open court. In keeping with the newspaper's longstanding policy of using the names of those who testify, she was identified by name. Her account of the rape was quoted in explicit detail. This is a small city, dominated by the Simpson Lumber Company mill, whose gates open off the foot of Main Street. The 7,500 people who live here know the intimate details of neighbors' lives. It is a place where strangers wait long periods for acceptance into social circles that have been decades in the making.
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The Sergeant York's First Victim
Date: 04 December 1985
The Army's Sergeant York gun, the first major weapons program to be killed in two decades, could not hit anything in life. Now it has risen from the grave and shot a surprising victim, James Beggs, the Administrator of NASA. The Justice Department indicted him on Monday for defrauding the Army while overseeing work on the Sergeant York as a vice president of General Dynamics.
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