U-Boat Crewman Greets Victims

--During World War II, Wilhelm Kruse served as radio operator aboard the German U-boat that sank a ship carrying 406 women and children being evacuated from Britain to Canada. On Sunday, Kruse, 67, sent good wishes and carnations to nine of the 15 people who survived the torpedo attack on the City of Benares, which sailed from Liverpool on Friday, Sept. 13, 1940. Appearing on British television, the survivors, most of whom live in Britain, got together for the first time since being rescued and spoke to Kruse by telephone. Bess Walder, a survivor, asked: “You did not know that there were children on board? You had no idea?” Kruse answered: “No. No idea.” According to Derek Bech, another survivor, no apology was needed. “They did not know what the cargo was, and the ship should have sailed 18 hours earlier.” The Benares was sunk in the mid-Atlantic four days after setting sail. The attack was described by British newspapers at the time as Adolf Hitler’s foulest deed.

--Soviet television viewers will have to learn that glasnost will now and then deliver some stark programming. On Sunday, their TV screens showed a convicted murderer, Valery Dolgov, 27, speaking of his sorrow during an interview hours before he was to be taken away to be shot. The hourlong documentary, “Supreme Court,” by Latvian director Gertz Frank, depicted Dolgov’s execution, which was carried out last year. “I never meant to kill anyone. I always loved people. I will love the people who will shoot me tomorrow,” said Dolgov, who was sentenced to death for killing two people who refused to return money to his gang boss. He admitted ties to the black market but said he never intended to kill his victims. A picture of Dolgov lying dead had been deleted from the version screened on Sunday. The film, which previously had been shown in full in movie theaters, has sparked a heated debate over the merits of the death penalty in the Soviet Union. The government is now weighing proposals that would either abolish capital punishment or reduce its use.

--Well, we know all about her penchant for shoes, but Imelda Marcos now has plans to tell us more--much more about herself. The wife of ex-Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos says she is writing an autobiography, vowing that it will not be dull. “I don’t know anyone like me,” she said at her home-in-exile in Hawaii. “I have lived a full life, richly and totally lived, through great glory and grandeur and now humility and deprivation.” The book, being written with Jack Cox, president of Jack Cox Productions in Abilene, Tex., is expected to be out by January.