News In Brief

Molotov returns in Soviet party

Former Stalinist Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov has been reinstated in the Communist Party, more than two decades after his fall from power in a failed bid to oust Nikita Khrushchev, a Foreign Ministry official confirmed Thursday.

The spokesman said Mr. Molotov was reinstated to mark his 94th birthday March 9, but he declined to comment on a report in the Italian Communist Party newspaper L'Unita that Molotov recently had a ''cordial'' conversation with President Konstantin Chernenko.