Week of Oct 20-25, 1983
In Augusta - Armed Charles Harris demands to talk to President Reagan and
takes two presidential aides and three other persons hostage inside the pro shop
of the Augusta National Golf Club while the President was playing golf nearby.
The siege ended several hours later after he surrendered.
Suicide terrorists crushed trucks through barricades and into buildings where
U.S. Marines, sailors and French paratroops were sleeping, detonating a huge
cargo of explosives that crumbled
structures.
American forces
invade Marxist-ruled
Grenada. 600 Cubans and 30 Soviets
are seized. President Reagan, calling
Grenada’s leaders “leftist thugs” said the
operation was successful.
The bodies of 25 more American
Marines are lifted from beneath their
shattered Beirut command post, pushing
the toll to at least 186 killed in the
bloodiest attack against the U.S. military since Vietnam.
The Justice Department announces that reported crime dropped by 5% during
the first six months of this year, but said the nation’s prison population swelled to
another record.
General Motors reports its best 3
rd
quarter ever - with earnings of $737 million -
a 471% gain from the same quarter last year!
President Reagan telephones Correta Scott King and asks her not to be offended
by his press conference comment that “we’ll know in about 35 years, won’t we?”
whether King was a communist sympathizer. Mrs. King said the President
indicated it was a flippant remark made in response to what he considered a
flippant question.
GNP way up
- The government reports that the economy grew at a brisk 7.9%
annual rate in the third quarter!
Volkswagen of America agrees to recall more than 1 million 1975 through 1982
model vehicles to correct safety defects in braking and electrical systems. The
