December 1981 - December 25, 1981 (Friday)

December 25, 1981 (Friday)

• On Christmas morning, Soviet President Brezhnev responded directly to U.S. President Reagan, "calling upon you and the government of the USA to end at last the interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state... Essentially, in your current communication, you have placed your personal signature upon the fact that gross interference in the internal affairs of Poland is the official policy of the United States. We have condemned and continue to condemn such a policy. We consider it unacceptable."
• The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party reversed a prior endorsement of economic reforms by Premier Zhao Ziyang, who had advocated western-style management and economic incentives to motivate workers. The CCP declared that the stated policy of Mao Zedong of "putting politics in command of industry", had been correct, and cited the Daqing oilfields as a model for industrial development.
• Died: Heinrich Welker, 69, German scientist who co-invented the "transistron", a form of transistor, independently of that invented by William Shockley and others; and Wallace Pratt, 96, American pioneer in petroleum geology.