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-------- europe
June 4-10 High-Priced Humble Pie
New York Times
June 11, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/061100thisweek-review.html
When President Clinton moved from Portugal to Germany to Russia to Ukraine on his European tour, he tried to dispel the notion of the United States as a global bully. In Aachen, Germany, he said that if it hadn't been for Europe, "there never would have been an America in the first place." In Moscow, he promised that the United States would never dictate to Russia how it should behave.
But he has learned the hard way that Europeans don't like it when America fails to lead on critical issues -- as it failed, for example, early in the Bosnia war. So even as Mr. Clinton laced his oratory with humility, he was also telling his audiences precisely what America wanted them to do -- in trade, in defense, in nuclear security and, in the cases of Russia and Ukraine, in political and economic reform.
Indeed, one thing Americans were telling others to do was to underwrite most of the cost of the major arms control achievement of the Clinton trip: an agreement for the United States and Russia to each dispose of 34 metric tons of their surplus weapons-grade plutonium. Only a small fraction of the $5.75 billion cost has been raised and unless other countries contribute, the agreement will not be implemented.
ELAINE SCIOLINO
-------- france
Actions and demonstration at French sub-marine base
Date: Sunday, June 11, 2000
Time: All Day From: abolition-caucus@egroups.com
Action and demonstration at Crozon near Ile Longue (French nuclear submarine base) : "for a nuclear weapon free Brittany and world". Abolition-day planned by French Peace Movement and others Abolition groups in Brittany.
-----
Brittanny, French nuclear submarine base, 11 June 2000
Over 300 march for nuclear disarmament
From: Lysiane Alezard - mvtpaix@globenet.org
"One month after the end of the NPT Conference, it's time to transform words into concrete actions", said Daniel Durand, national secretary.
A few meters away from the French nuclear subarine base of l'Ile Longue, near Brest, over 300 citizens march for nuclear disarmament, to stop modernizations and lab tests. l'Ile Longue hosts 85% of the French arsenal.
Protesters, coming from the western part of France, met in various public discussions, to discuss the need for more public action in favour of nuclear abolition. Speakers included Georges Fareborther, World court project, Barbara and Ulla (Scottish Trident Ploughshares), Yasmina Chouaki (Algerian peace movement), Daniel Durand (Mouvement de la Paix) and Dominique Lalanne (Stop Essais).
This initiative launched by the Mouvement de la Paix was met by the support of Stop essais, Sortir du nucléaire, and other associations, including some political parties. It was well covered by the local medias.
At the end of the march, at the base entrance, participants announced the creation of a Monitoring committee to check the implementation of recent commitments by nuclear power states, at the NTP review conference," for unequivocal nuclear disarmament".
-------- imf / world bank
For more information on the situation in Thailand, go to www.irn.org
SUPPORT THAI VILLAGERS PROTESTING WORLD BANK DAM PROJECTS!!!
Thousands of Thai villagers have taken over the Pak Mun and Rasi Salai dams and are demanding the dams be removed and their livelihoods be restored. They are threatened with drowning in the rising waters and violence by the state (who agreed monday to arrest the leaders.) Demand the dams be REMOVED!
Demand the river be RESTORED! Demand the WORLD BANK stop funding destructive projects!!!
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14th, 11:00AM
THAI EMBASSY,
1024 WISCONSIN AVE. NW
WASHINGTON, DC (in Georgetown)
For more information, contact Gila Neta
email: gila@cepr.net
phone: 202-293-5380 ext. 208
-------- india / pakistan
DOUBTFUL DEALS
Virtually every arms-selling company is wooing India, whose defence establishment has suddenly become cash-rich
The Week June 11, 2000
Cover story by R. Prasannan
http://www.the-week.com/20jun11/cover.htm
Tourism watchers say that France is the world's most visited country. Soon it may be for India's defence brass. Ever since Sofma lost the field gun contract to Sweden's Bofors, the otherwise flamboyant French had been lying low. But they are back now, with a lot of bang for Indian big bucks. Several French commercial delegations are landing in Delhi with lists of lethal ware. Following the big bang budget of this year, they first sent their chief of joint staff Gen. Jean-Pierre Kelche and then Defence Minister Alain Richard. The Vajpayee government, too, is responding with equal warmth. Defence Minister George Fernandes visited Paris twice in the last few months, followed by army chief Gen. V.P. Malik, air chief Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis and Supreme Commander K.R. Narayanan. The aggressive French diplomacy had its effect when Dassault's Alphajet was back in the reckoning as a possible advanced jet trainer (AJT) choice after being rejected on price grounds. Two months ago, the ministry had told the parliamentary standing committee on defence that only British Aerospace's Hawk was being considered and price negotiations were going on with the manufacturers.
THE SUITORS
- Dassault. Its advanced jet trainer Alphajet was rejected on price grounds earlier. - British Aerospace. Its Hawk (above left) is the defence ministry's hot choice despite its high price. - MiG-MAPO for MiG-AT. Russians offered joint development and licence production but was rejected.
- Uralvagonzavod. The Russians have reduced the price of T-90 tanks from $2.65 million to $2.2 million.
- Iskra. Price negotiations with the Ukrainians for the radar system are on.
Senior officials are wondering how the Russian MiG-AT, which was offered at 40 per cent of the price quoted by British Aerospace for its Hawk, got out of the race. The air force had been asking for an AJT for nearly two decades. Successive governments have been postponing a decision, finding that the Anglo-French cartel was refusing to reduce the price. The scene changed in the early 90s after Russian President Boris Yeltsin asked Prime Minister Narasimha Rao to consider MiG-MAPO's MiG-AT which was under development. The 1995-96 budget even made a Rs 300 crore allocation; technical negotiations were held and a detailed project report prepared for commercial negotiations. The Russian plane was unproved, but the low price coupled with the offer for joint development and licence production appeared to beat competition. But price negotiations were conducted only with the British and the French early this year, after which the ministry told the parliamentary standing committee that it preferred the Hawk.
Sources in the defence ministry say that the French price was found too high. Incidentally, some of the members of the present government had alleged in the mid-90s that India had overpaid 4.7 million francs to Dassault for the 40 Mirages and associated equipment bought for 4,597,915,000 francs. However, technically, the Alphajet went out of reckoning because Dassault did not respond to a fresh request for proposal last September. The French then came up with some aggressive "strategic diplomacy", following which a revised request was made and the ministry told the negotiators to consider the Alphajet offer afresh.
The special committee on flight safety, which had stressed on the need for an AJT, had recommended that whichever aircraft was being bought should be viable for 20 to 25 years. Computed from the day the committee gave its report, this viability period would end in 2002-2007. Alphajet is essentially 1960s technology and Hawk is of 1970s vintage, though both are powered by newer engines. Now the situation is that India has to buy either Hawk or Alphajet, which were shortlisted in 1986, at current prices.
The case of weapon-locating radars, the need for which was highlighted often during the Kargil conflict, is no different. Requests for proposal were sent to five manufacturers, but only Hughes of the US offered its ware for trial. The army found that the Hughes system did not meet the general staff quality requirements (GSQR). The ministry put up the file before the minister who wrote that the unrealistic GSQR parameters had reduced competition. Then the nuclear tests of May 1998 came in the way. With sanctions in place, there was no way the US could sell the system to India.
Iskra of Ukraine and Thomson CSF of France then came on the scene, but the latter would not offer its system for trials. The negotiators were thus compelled to recommend the Ukrainian radar when Daimler Chrysler arrived with its Cobra radar. A delegation went to France and Germany to evaluate the Cobra, but again was not allowed to witness a working demonstration. Price negotiations with the Ukrainians are on. Though not as aggressive as the French, virtually every arms-selling country is now looking at India whose defence establishment has suddenly become cash-rich. The Russians are willing to give aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov free, provided the Nevskoye Project Design Bureau is given the $500 million contract for upgrading it and India buys at least a squadron of either MiG-29K or Su-33 to be based on the carrier.
The T-90 tank deal shows how desperate the Russians are. Uralvagonzavod, the tank's manufacturers, found that the Russian army does not have the money to buy them in bulk and so are scouting the export market. An order from India, the Russians believe, will go a long way in raising the market status of the tank in the world. And so they reduced the price from the original $2.65 million to $2.41 million, and now to $ 2.2 million. So aggressive has been the Russian hardsell that at one stage India was willing to buy the tank with eyes closed. Hardly had Russia offered to sell T-90 tanks when a technical delegation flew to Moscow, evaluated the tank and recommended its acquisition. Within weeks the cabinet committee on security approved purchase of 125 tanks off the shelf and 186 in knocked-down condition.
It was then that former prime minister Deve Gowda shot off letters to Prime Minister Vajpayee questioning the unholy haste. Sniffing a scandal in the air, the price negotiation committee recommended testing the tank in Indian summer, which is yet to be completed. All the same, techno-commercial negotiations have begun. There have also been allegations that the four Kamov-31 early warning helicopters, each costing $13.95 million, were bought from Russia last year without trying them in tropical climate. The navy's argument is that it has been operating Kamov-25 and 28 and so there was no need to test the new ones which have similar airframe as Kamov-28.
The tank deal became a controversy when the army was about to put on backburner the T-72M1 upgrade programme in which a host of European and Israeli firms were interested. PCO-Cenzin of Poland, Elop of Israel and Thomson CSF of France had been shortlisted for supply of the vital fire-control system; Kerametal of Poland for power plant; Taman of Israel, Litef of Germany and RDI of South Africa for the navigation system component; GEC Marconi of the UK and Tadiram of Israel for radios. Mirage 2000 There was an allegation in the mid-90s that India had overpaid 4.7 million francs to Dassault for 40 Mirages and associated equipment. All is quiet on the tank front with the army deciding to go ahead with both the T-90 deal and upgrade of around 200 T-72s. One can imagine the desperation of the vendors, considering the fact that it costs Rs 1.3 crore to upgrade one tank.
Ministry officials say that it is the service headquarters which insists on hasty acquisition. Following the Kargil conflict, the army headquarters insisted that at least one battery of Smerch multi-barrel rocket launchers be inducted expeditiously, though they had earlier postponed it to the tenth army plan. A technical team went to Russia in September 1999 and recommended its acquisition without conducting field trials in India. The ministry, however, insisted that the system be tested at Balasore. All the same the file has been forwarded to the cabinet committee on security. As seen in the tank case, lobbying is stronger in the upgrade market than in purchase of new systems. "Visibility is less in smaller packages, but the total money involved is bigger," explained an officer in the naval headquarters.
As of today, India plans to spend Rs 5,000 crore on upgrading its old ware. Two MiG-21s are being upgraded in Russia which will transfer the knowhow and kits to Hindustan Aeronautics to upgrade the remaining 120-odd planes at a total cost of $626 million. The current competition is to supply ware for upgrading MiG-27 by HAL and Aeronautical Development Establishment at a ceiling cost of Rs 430 crore. Often there are also diplomatic compulsions, rather than techno-economic reasons, that work behind foreign procurement. The South Africans are learnt to have been dissuaded from selling artillery systems to Pakistan by the Indian counter-offer to buy refurbished Casspir mine-protected vehicles.
There were many in the market, but all others were rejected "on considerations of cost, mobility, protection level, carrying capacity and delivery schedule". Only Casspir was tried in India and invited to six rounds of negotiations. Finally 90 vehicles of 1981 vintage and 75 of 1988 vintage were ordered with support package. Anyway, the global tables have been turned. Till five years ago, when Indian arms purchase budget was paltry in real terms, India was accused by western arms-selling countries of indulging in an arms race. In fact, organisations like the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute were even accusing India of falsifying its purchase budget. Now India is really out shopping with a big purse, and the old critics are on glib sales talk.
Rollback on dates The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is probing all the defence deals of the last 15 years. That is what the country and its Parliament believe. But documents in possession of The Week give a different picture. A defence ministry press note of February 5 said: "CVC is being requested to probe the allegations of presence of agents in all identified major procurement decisions that have been taken since 1985-86 (ie., after a decision was taken by the government banning the role of middlemen)." In March, Minister George Fernandes told Parliament that "a special group of officers headed by the chief vigilance officer of the ministry of defence, who is in the rank of a joint secretary, has been constituted to ensure prompt and effective follow-up action on all major observations of the comptroller and auditor-general pertaining to procurement of arms, ammunitions, spares, their storage, transfer of technology, indigenisation and other related aspects. This group will identify the important observations/findings of the C&AG in the last 15 years for necessary corrective action and to fix responsibility for lapses/delays/corrupt practices, if any, for necessary administrative, disciplinary/legal action." However, a note sent by Additional Secretary S.K. Misra to the three service headquarters says: "Raksha Mantri has decided that all major procurement cases which have been finalised after government orders (April, 1989) banning agents, middlemen or middle companies in defence procurement, should be referred to the Central Vigilance Commission to investigate through the CBI or through any agency as considered appropriate by them, whether in those cases there was involvement of agents, middlemen or middle companies...." Who is to be believedÑthe minister or the additional secretary? And why this difference of four years during which India bought MiG-29 fighters, the EKM submarines and the Tu-142 maritime reconnaissance aircraft?
Ministry officials explain that the change of date was on the advice of officials who clarified to the minister that middlemen and agents were banned only in 1989. In that case who advised the minister in February? "This is typical of the way the ministry of defence is functioning," said an officer at the naval headquarters. "The babus who don't know a commodore from a commander are taking the minister up the garden path." All the same, the ministry has made no attempt to clarify the position to Parliament, even when the matter was raised. On May 10, P. Prabhakar Reddy asked the minister in Rajya Sabha, "Whether it is a fact that the Central Bureau of Investigation has expressed its inability to investigate into the various defence purchases made since 1985 referred to it by the defence ministry?" The written reply was: "Ministry of defence has requested the Central Vigilance Commission to get all defence procurement cases, since the time of presence of agents in such cases was banned by the government, investigated through the CBI or any other agency considered appropriate. The CBI has not expressed its inability to investigate such cases." The next day Ram Mohan Gadde and M.V.V.S. Murthy asked, "Whether the CBI has expressed its inability to undertake the probe into defence deals since 1985, asked for by the government this year unless specific cases are referred to it?"
The reply again did not mention the change of the cut-off date. It read:
"...A detailed presentation on defence procurement procedure was given to the CVC by ministry of defence and the service headquarters. After discussion with the CVC about the modalities in this regard, the first batch of 63 case files on defence procurement has been submitted to them. These include some cases mentioned by an Hon'ble MP in a short duration discussion on defence procurement in Rajya Sabha on 23.12.1999 and in a writ petition filed by a naval officer, in which allegations of presence of agents and corruption were made. These case files are presently under scrutiny in the CVC. Defence ministry is extending cooperation required in the matter.... The CBI has not raised any point in this regard with ministry of defence." On both occasions there was no attempt to clarify the dates. Most of the case files handed over are learnt to be of the 1996-1999 period during which equipment and stores worth Rs 63,008.57 crore were procured by the services. The names of indigenous and foreign companies which supplied them have been submitted to both the C&AG and CVC. According to the minister, "Su-30 contract is one of the many major defence procurement contracts which have been referred to the CVC for investigation to find out if there was presence of agents, middlemen, middle companies...," following reports of hanky-panky in the media and Parliament. Sources in the service headquarters are sceptical about the exercise. "Very often the manufacturer who failed to get the contract would later allege that there was some hanky-panky," said an officer, citing a Romanian case. India had bought some aerial bombs from Romtechnica, which had authorisation from the Romanian defence ministry. However, another company, Ratmil complained that it was the only manufacturer with a licence from Romanian defence ministry. Investigations revealed that Romtechnica was a state-owned company and was the only authorised firm to conclude such contracts. The only case that has been transferred to the CBI after Fernandes's blanket probe order is the Pitcare case. (Another case, of one Ashok Chawla in the Ukranian tank deal is of older vintage.) Pitcare of Hong Kong was contracted in 1993 to supply 10,000 rounds of 130 mm and 6,700 rounds of 122 mm illuminating ammunition for $6.12 million. The 10,000 rounds of 130 mm ammunition arrived in 1993 at the Pulgaon depot, without literature and range tables. A check-proof could be done only in August 1995 when the fuze-setting key and range tables arrived. Ten rounds were fired and three recorded defects. A reproof of 23 rounds in December 1995 manifested 12 failures. The consignment was declared "not fit for use" and a quality claim was raised. R. Prasannan
Leading astray Much of what is happening in the Purohit case is behind the back of the naval chief and often the defence minister
Officers at the naval headquarters say the confusion about the cut-off date for the vigilance probe is just one instance of how certain officials have been misleading the minister. The Purohit case is another. T-90S tanks Hardly had Russia offered to sell T-90 tanks when a technical delegation flew to Moscow, evaluated the tank and recommended its acquisition.
Rear Admiral Suhas Purohit's promotion case is now before the Delhi High Court while the ministry has referred the allegations he raised to the Central Vigilance Commissioner. But Purohit suspects that the ministry's attempt is to drag its feet till he retires next year. Purohit, the senior-most rear admiral in the logistic cadre, was hopeful of getting promoted as vice-admiral when Vice-Admiral Varghese Koithara retired in January 1998. Purohit's name had been cleared by the promotion board in late 1997, but he is yet to get his promotion. If arms dealers who lost their profits by his actions in the early 90s tried to get him posted out of logistics once, now he suspects the hand of ministry officials in scuttling his promotion. Purohit was to retire in July 1998, but his promotion would have got him four more years, thanks partly to extension of retirement age by two years.
The controversy started on the eve of the promotion board meeting when naval headquarters received an anonymous complaint that Purohit had been favouring one Super Trade, Makalu Engineers and others and had received favours from them. Ironically, some of the firms listed had been losers from the actions of Purohit in the early 90s. Rules prohibit inquiry over anonymous complaints, yet as a matter of abundant caution, the then chief, Admiral Bhagwat, asked Vice-Admiral Sushil Kumar to get the matter probed so that the matter was settled before the board met. The departmental probe cleared him and the promotion board, consisting of both Bhagwat and Sushil Kumar apart from three others, recommended promotion. The file was forwarded to the ministry and the then defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadav okayed it. It was then that another anonymous complaint was sent to the Prime Minister's Office. Koithara retired in January 1998 and Purohit was asked to officiate as chief of logistics. Faced with retirement in July 1998, he made a statutory representation which was not replied to, though rules stipulate the reply should be given within 30 days.
Meanwhile the government changed, and the ministry ordered a fresh look into the explanations given by Purohit to the charges raised in the anonymous letter. This committee found the allegations "baseless". Meanwhile, members of the committee, some of whom were naval officers, personally assured him that he would be promoted soon. But as months dragged on, Purohit started sending statutory complaints and reminders, but never got a reply. Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat was sacked in December 1998 and soon there was an attempt to portray Purohit as Bhagwat's man. Alarmed, Purohit claims to have met Sushil Kumar who told him "to continue to work and persevere in the direction in which he was leading the logistics function." Purohit's writ petition also claims that he was told by Sushil Kumar that he was satisfied with his performance earlier too.
All the same, a white paper brought out by the ministry in the wake of the Bhagwat controversy publicised the allegations against Purohit and omitted the fact that he had been held "blameless". The white paper also alleged that the CBI was probing the allegations and that the NHQ, under Bhagwat, had not been cooperating. Sources in the service headquarters suspect that much of what is happening in the Purohit case is behind the back of the naval chief (as in the case of a fresh CBI inquiry) and often the minister. Purohit's petition also alleges that the "promotion board recommendations... were as such dealt with at the MOD at unknown levels". For, there is no indication on the files as to when the decision was taken by the minister to refer the case to the CBI, to transfer him to the post of officer on special duty with the chief of personnel and keep his promotion in abeyance till the CBI inquiry is completed. Incidentally, the Supreme Court has observed in another case that an inquiry can be considered 'pending' only after chargesheet or charge memo has been issued.
Alphajet The French came up with some aggressive "strategic diplomacy", following which the defence ministry told negotiators to consider Alphajet offer afresh. (above right, Minister George Fernandes.) There was still no action from the CBI's part, which made many wonder whether the agency was investigating the matter. It did not interrogate Purohit; not even sought information from him. But Purohit was served a show-cause notice from NHQ which referred to certain allegations raised by a company that had lost a tender to supply compressors. Incidentally, the company had gone up to the Supreme Court and lost the case, and both the naval headquarters and the ministry had defended Purohit's action in court. More interestingly, the CBI probe was also into allegations over some of Purohit's actions which had earned him a Visisht Seva Medal!
Soon, chief of personnel Vice-Admiral Arun Prakash wrote to Purohit that "it has been learnt telephonically from MOD that the secret verification undertaken by the CBI in the matter of anonymous complaints against you has been completed. However, no information on this file in this context has so far been forwarded to NHQ by MOD."
Why the MOD has taken no action is the mystery in the naval headquarters. The chief of personnel has also written to Purohit that he himself had "personally brought to the notice of the raksha mantri and defence secretary the long delay that has occurred in the CBI secret verification as well as on the question of your promotion to the rank of vice-admiral. It is for your information that no written response has been received from the MOD till date." Naval officers also believe that the minister himself had approved the findings of the ministerial committee and recommended Purohit's promotion in June 1998. But the ministry's stand-off with Bhagwat started soon after and the anti-Purohit group got the whole affair linked to the Bhagwat episode, on the ground that it was a board headed by Bhagwat that had recommended his promotion.
A promotion board was constituted recently, and as Purohit approached the court again stating that the only vacancy was that of chief of logistics, the ministry assured the court that the post would be kept vacant till the court decides on the matter. But Purohit's friends now suspect that the idea is to drag the issue till he retires in April 2001. Though the NHQ has been made a respondent in Purohit's petition, it is clear from the documents attached to it that the NHQ's sympathies lay with Purohit. The tug of war, as in the case of Bhagwat, is essentially between the service headquarters and the ministry which has been resisting all attempts to bestow more powers on the service headquarters. For instance, Fernandes had promised in the wake of the Bhagwat controversy that he would get the ministry-services relationship restructured within a month. Nothing has been heard of it till date. On the contrary, the attempts of the service headquarters to get a greater say in security matters have been stiffly resisted by the ministry. The service chiefs were peeved that they were not initially even consulted when the Indian Airlines plane was hijacked to Kandahar. There was also a move to bring in the services within the purview of the vigilance commission. The chiefs wrote a stern letter pointing out that they have a quicker and smarter way of dealing with corruption within the service acts. The ministry had its revenge when the chiefs once requested that they be made part of the cabinet committee on security affairs. The ministry replied with a prompt 'no'. R. Prasannan
------ israel
Laser Shoots Down Missile
New York Times
June 11, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/061100thisweek-review.html
In the 1980's, when politics thrust laser-based missile defenses into the spotlight, the technology was clearly not up to the job. Now it has caught up a bit: a laser designed to protect Israel's northern border blew up a small rocket in flight during a test at the Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Supporters said the success showed that a national missile defense was no longer unthinkable.
JAMES GLANZ
-------- japan
3 Die as Blast Destroys Japanese Chemical Plant
New York Times
June 11, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/japan-blast-ap.html
TOKYO, June 10 -- An explosion ripped through a chemical plant in eastern Japan tonight, killing at least 3 people, injuring at least 25 and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of nearby residents, fire officials said.
The blast, which occurred at 6 p.m. local time, gutted the plant, damaged scores of buildings and broke the windows of nearby shops and cars in the town of Ojima, about 70 miles north of Tokyo.
A fire official said that the explosion had damaged several buildings within a 300-yard radius of the factory.
The cause of the blast was unknown and is under investigation, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Some four hours after the explosion, smoke was still billowing from the facility and 30 emergency vehicles were on the scene, the official added.
He said the explosion damaged 200 homes and knocked out power. Roads in the area were also closed and residents were being evacuated, he said.
The factory is operated by Tokyo-based the Nisshin Chemical Company, and produces agriculture and pharmaceutical chemicals.
In Japan, where zoning laws are far from stringent, it is not unusual to have homes near chemical and industrial plants.
Those injured in the explosion ranged in age from a six-year-old girl to pensioners in their 80's.
"I heard a tremendous sound and five or six windows were broken at my home. I can still see red flames rising into the air," Katsuyuki Kato, who lives just over half a mile from the plant, was quoted as telling Kyodo News.
---
USA Today
06/11/00
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#assad
TOKYO - A chemical plant exploded Saturday north of Tokyo, killing four workers, injuring at least 27 people and shattering the windows of nearby homes. The four workers killed were inside the plant run by Nisshin Chemical, and four other workers in the plant at the time of the blast were hospitalized, police said. One person lost an ear in the accident in Gunma Prefecture, 65 miles north of Tokyo, police said. Many were cut by flying pieces of glass. The fumes were not toxic, Ojima city official Eiichi Kanai said. The explosion took place during the mixing of hydroxylamine with a water solution, Kanai said. Hydroxylamine is used to remove oxygen from other substances. A fire set off by the blast is under control. The cause of the explosion is under investigation.
-------- korea
Korean Talks' Start Delayed to Tuesday
New York Times
June 11, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/061100korea-summit-ap.html
SEOUL, South Korea, Sunday, June 11 -- The first summit meeting between leaders of North Korea and South Korea has been delayed by one day and will start on Tuesday, the government here announced today.
The summit was delayed for "unavoidable technical reasons," the office of South Korean President Kim Dae-jung said in a news release.
South Korea's Unification Minister Park Jae-kyu said the delay did not mean the summit was in jeopardy.
"The North side requested the delay to make thorough preparations, so there will be no problems with President Kim's visit to and stay in Pyongyang," the Yonhap news agency quoted Mr. Park as saying.
Mr. Kim had planned to fly to Pyongyang on Monday to meet his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong Il, for a meeting that offers hopes for gradual reconciliation after decades of bitter conflict on the Korean peninsula, which was split at the end of World War II into the communist North and the pro-Western South.
The two leaders are expected to discuss the dispatch of economic aid from the rich South to the impoverished North, as well as the reunion of separated families.
---
Korean Summit Delayed by One Day
Associated Press
June 11, 2000 Filed at 8:48 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Koreas-Summit-Hopes.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- For the first-ever meeting between leaders of South Korea and North Korea, a South Korean official is warning against high expectations. He says a mere photo opportunity would make this week's summit a success.
``The picture of two leaders smiling and shaking hands, the picture itself is a great message for world peace,'' South Korean Culture and Tourism Minister Park Jie-won said.
Fissures between the two countries are so great that prospects for reconciliation remain unclear, despite their biggest diplomatic breakthrough since they waged war a half-century ago.
The divide is so entrenched that hundreds of thousands of troops line either side of the Demilitarized Zone, thousands of separated families have lost contact and there are no means of direct travel or communication between the two countries.
The Korean conflict has shown extraordinary longevity, surviving the end of the Cold War as well as 1990s predictions that the communist North would collapse amid deadly famine and economic ruin.
Pyongyang remains outwardly defiant, reliant on international food aid but capable of launching long-range missiles.
Still, North Korea has decided to engage the world -- although for now on its own, limited terms.
The three-day summit between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, which starts Tuesday in Pyongyang, caps six months of vigorous diplomacy with China, Italy, Australia, the United States and other countries.
The summit, scheduled to begin Monday, was delayed a day for ``unavoidable technical reasons,'' Kim's office said in a news release. No further details were released.
South Korea's Unification Minister Park Jae-kyu said the delay does not mean the summit is in jeopardy.
``The North side requested the delay to make thorough preparations, so there will be no problems with President Kim's visit to and stay in Pyongyang,'' the national Yonhap news agency quoted Park as saying.
North Korea's agreement to host a summit is a notable compromise because it previously disdained most attempts at dialogue by Seoul, a government it considered illegitimate.
Even if the North felt obligated to talk out of desperation for economic aid from the rich South, the summit is a spectacular validation of Kim Dae-jung's so-called ``sunshine'' policy of engaging Pyongyang.
``The meeting of the leaders and having candid exchanges of opinions and ideas will be the achievement of the summit itself,'' said Moon Jung-in, a politics professor at Seoul's Yonsei University who will travel to Pyongyang in the president's delegation.
Moon predicted the two countries' stated goal of reunification could require three or four decades of trust-building measures such as arms reduction and economic cooperation.
President Kim has also warned against expecting too much from the summit, saying he wants to arrange more meetings that might yield deals on major issues.
The presence of 37,000 American troops in South Korea and Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs are among the most contentious topics.
An obstacle to reconciliation lies in North Korea's persistence in defining itself as a bulwark against a trio of imperialist aggressors: Japan, South Korea and the United States.
``That residue is still there despite the Cold War being over,'' said Victor Cha, a Korea expert at Georgetown University in Washington.
Without a perceived threat from the outside, North Korea might be pressed to justify its totalitarian system.
The former military-led governments of South Korea, which is now a democracy, used to defend their authoritarian ways by warning of the menace from the North.
Hopes for an improvement in ties have been dashed before. In 1972, huge crowds lined the streets of Seoul to welcome a North Korean Red Cross delegation, but those talks ended inconclusively.
The prime ministers of both nations met in 1991 and agreed to promote reconciliation, yet concern that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons plunged the peninsula into crisis three years later.
Despite the tension, the two countries agreed to a summit in 1994. But North Korean leader Kim Il Sung died at age 82 only weeks before he was to meet his South Korean counterpart, Kim Young-sam.
His son and successor, Kim Jong Il, consolidated his power in the years that followed.
Among those most anxious for the summit's success is 71-year-old Choi Byong-yool, who fled from the North to the South with his family shortly after the Korean peninsula was divided in 1945.
He has no idea what happened to the relatives he left behind.
``What we want most urgently is to find out whether our loved ones are still alive.''
---
Start of Korean summit delayed
USA Today
06/11/00- Updated 04:02 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#assad
SEOUL, South Korea - The first-ever summit between leaders of North Korea and South Korea has been delayed by one day and will start Tuesday, the Seoul government announced. The summit was delayed for ''unavoidable technical reasons,'' the office of South Korean President Kim Dae-jung said in a news release. No further details were released. Kim Dae-jung had planned to fly Monday to Pyongyang to meet his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong Il, in a summit that offers hopes for gradual reconciliation on the Korean peninsula after decades of bitter conflict. The two are expected to discuss the dispatch of economic aid from the rich South to the impoverished North, as well as the reunion of separated families. Among the most contentious issues that might be raised are the U.S. military presence in South Korea, and North Korea's missile and nuclear programs.
---
N.Korea, Russian Officials Meet
Associated Press
June 10, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-North-Korea.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- North Korea's ambassador to Russia met Saturday with Russia's deputy foreign minister to discuss President Vladimir Putin's upcoming visit to North Korea.
The Kremlin announced Friday that Putin will visit North Korea shortly, but did not give a date. The visit would be the first by a Russian leader to North Korea and comes at a time when Moscow and Washington disagree over the possible threat posed by the communist nation.
Ambassador Pak Ul Chun and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov discussed ``strategic stability, including the topic of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and means of their delivery,'' the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The United States is considering building a limited anti-missile defense system against ``rogue states'' such as North Korea, a proposal strongly opposed by Russia, which sees it as a threat to its own nuclear forces.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Friday that Putin would not be urging North Korea to curb its missile program when he meets with leader Kim Jong Il.
``President Putin is coming on a visit to a friendly country and he does not intend to talk anybody out of anything,'' Ivanov said.
Although a date for the visit has not been announced, Putin's foreign policy aide Sergei Prikhodko said the visit would be before the July 21-23 meeting in Japan of the Group of Eight, Russia and the world's leading industrialized nations.
-------- russia
Putin Seeks Allies in Quest to Fight U.S. Missile Plan
New York Times
June 11, 2000
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/061100russia-putin.html
MOSCOW, June 10 -- President Vladimir V. Putin had barely said farewell to President Clinton this week before the Russian leader and top aides fanned out across Europe to campaign against American plans for a national missile defense.
On whirlwind trips to Brussels and Rome, the Russians sought to persuade the Europeans that a blend of diplomacy, vigilance and Russian technology is a better way to cope with the emerging missile threat.
Then, the Kremlin announced that Mr. Putin would be undertaking a diplomatic mission to North Korea, the very "rogue nation" Washington has cited to justify its plan.
Given Russia's economic weakness, the new Russian president is not looking for a confrontation with the United States. But neither is he very pliable.
Indeed, it seems as if Mr. Putin, the former K.G.B. agent who spent the waning days of the cold war in East Germany, is trying to split the Europeans from the Americans. It is a classic Kremlin tactic, wielded with a heavy handed in Soviet times.
Today, Mr. Putin is more gentle, insisting only that Russia is a fellow European power and as such more concerned with preserving the framework of arms control than what many Europeans see as the go-it-alone Americans.
"There is a public relations war over missile defense, and all's fair in p.r. wars," a Clinton administration official said of the new Russian stand. "Some of it has been sophisticated. Some has been crude. But we have really seen an activist Russian foreign policy."
The Clinton administration had been accustomed to dealing with Boris N. Yeltsin, a sickly leader who nonetheless had a rapport with leaders such as President Clinton and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. But while Mr. Putin's relations with Western leaders are more correct than close, he has engaged in a surprising burst of diplomacy.
Since his election two months ago, Mr. Putin has visited Britain, Italy, Belarus, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Over the next six weeks, he is headed to Spain, Germany, Moldova, Tajikistan, China, North Korea and Japan, where he will attend the summit meeting of the major industrialized nations, and possibly to South Korea. Visits to the United States, India and Brunei, the site of an Asian summit meeting, are also planned for the rest of the year -- but so far not to France, which has been fiercely critical of Russia's war in Chechnya.
A principal goal of the globe-trotting Russian leader is to lure Western investment, an important element of his plan to strengthen his nation's economy and restore Russia as a world power. He is also looking for relief from his nation's mammoth debts, which is a major purpose of his upcoming German trip.
Countering the Clinton administration's missile defense plan and its insistence that the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty be amended to accommodate it, however, is clearly a top priority.
The Russians understand that the first phase of the American plan would have little effect on their nuclear forces. But they fear it would lay the basis for still grander plans, which would give the United States a strategic advantage. Having failed to persuade Washington to abandon its push to build a nationwide antimissile system, the Kremlin is doing the next best thing: it is working on America's allies.
The Europeans, for example, not only fear that the American plan to place 100 interceptors in Alaska and to build a battle-management radar system would undermine the framework of arms control accords and ignite an arms race. They are also not entirely convinced that there is a new missile threat, and they are keenly aware that the Clinton administration missile defense plan is not designed to protect them.
The Russian diplomacy has been designed to exploit all of these fears. At a meeting on Friday at NATO headquarters, Marshal Igor D. Sergeyev, the Russian defense minister, presented a Russian alternative, which he dubbed a plan for "European, nonstrategic defense."
The not-so-subtle message is that Russia, unlike the United States, has a plan that not only protects the European continent from an evolving missile threat, but would be consistent with the ABM treaty, which is widely seen as the bulwark of arms control as pursued to date.
"Obviously, Russian policy is trying to use the European skepticism for its own purposes," said Karl Kaiser, a German foreign policy analyst. Russia is also calculating that the Europeans view their Russian neighbor as more of a potential partner than the Americans. By casting himself as a philosophical ally, Mr. Putin is also trying to win friends and secure funds from Europe.
"Instead of just saying 'no' and saying that we do not see a threat, Putin is proposing a way to address it," said Aleksei Arbatov, a defense expert and deputy in the Russian Parliament. "I think it is a very smart policy."
In this sense, the Kremlin's approach is far less confrontational than the Soviet Union's campaign in the 1980's against NATO's decision to deploy medium-range missiles to counter the Soviet SS-20's. American officials say, however, that when Mr. Putin's proposals are examined carefully there is less convergence than meets the eye.
That seemed to be the case with Mr. Putin's strategy on missile defense.
At the NATO meetings on Friday, Marshal Sergeyev presented a seven-step plan so vague in outline that it appeared more of a debating point than a blueprint. Under his proposal, NATO nations and Russia would first evaluate the missile threat and develop a joint European and Russian defense that would use theater antimissile systems. These are systems that are designed to intercept shorter-range missiles, not long-range ballistic missiles, and as such are allowed under the terms of the ABM treaty.
The Russians have suggested nonetheless that these systems might have some use against the emerging missile threat. Marshal Sergeyev did not say, however, whether the theater defense would be used to blow up third world missiles on their way up or to intercept warheads on their way down. Nor did he provide any detailed account of how the defense system would work.
"At this stage we know very little about what, if anything, the Russians have in mind at a detailed technical level," Walter B. Slocombe, the United States undersecretary of defense, said after the NATO session. Defense Secretary William Cohen and his aides will have a chance to investigate further at meetings in Moscow early next week.
While the Europeans harbor doubts about the American missile defense scheme, they are unlikely to rally around the Russian plan. Western European nations are reluctant to spend their limited military funds on missile defense, regardless of whether the technology originates in the United States or Russia. There were few questions from European diplomats about the details of the Russian scheme at the NATO meeting, Western officials say, because the Europeans are not interested in developing antimissile technology.
Mr. Putin, however, is not counting only on the Europeans. He is also likely to encourage opposition to the American missile defense plan during his visit to Bejing. The Chinese are already strongly opposed to Washington's plan, and Mr. Putin is expected to encourage them to remain firm. The goal is to create the impression that it is not just Russia that is upset with the American missile defense plans but China and Europe, as well.
Mr. Putin is also expected to use his visit to North Korea, the first ever by a Russian president, to cast doubt on the rationale for the American missile defense plan. The Russian leader will likely use the trip to portray North Korea as a rational government that is emerging from its isolation and to try to debunk the American notion that North Korea is an irrational "rogue" state that is likely to hurl a missile at the West at any moment.
After the flurry of Russian moves this week, Mr. Putin called President Clinton on Friday to express his appreciation for a workmanlike summit meeting and to state his commitment to deeper arms cuts. American officials said Mr. Putin's tone was polite but doubted it heralded a breakthrough on the missile defense issue.
"Yeltsin might say 'no' at first but it would eventually mean 'yes,' " a Clinton administration official said. "Putin says 'yes' when he means 'no.' He says I agree with you and then elaborates. And after you examine his elaboration you discover there is almost no agreement there."
---
US Defense Sec'y Urges Russia Ties
Associated Press
June 10, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Lithuania-Cohen.html
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) -- U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen on Saturday praised Lithuania's efforts in bidding for NATO membership, and stressed the importance of a good relationship with Russia.
``Lithuania's determination to lift its military capability to work productively with NATO and improve relations with Russia are very important steps on a long and difficult staircase to possible NATO membership,'' Cohen said.
Cohen was in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, for a one-day meeting with defense ministers from the Baltic region -- an annual event focusing on security issues, including NATO expansion and regional security cooperation.
Cohen outlined Washington's tentative plans for a limited missile defense system to protect against attacks by ``rogue nations,'' the meeting's press officer Jolanda Andriuekiene said. The Russians and some NATO allies have opposed the missile defense plan, saying it would breach the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and tip the world balance of nuclear power.
``It is important that the Baltic states, the European community and NATO itself seek to find ways in which we can collaborate on many levels with Russia,'' Cohen told a news conference.
Cohen's European tour, which included stops in Belgium and Sweden, was to culminate next week in Moscow, where he planned to meet with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev.
Lithuania -- along with its Baltic neighbors, Latvia and Estonia -- have made NATO membership a top priority, and hoped to win invitations to the defense alliance by 2002.
Moscow has vigorously opposed the Baltics' membership in NATO, saying it would consider NATO's relationship with the three former Soviet republics a threat to Russian security. Critics have said the tiny countries, nestled between the northern Baltic Sea and Russia, are too vulnerable militarily and would weaken the 19-member alliance.
Cohen reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to keeping NATO's door open, but offered no specifics.
``No nation should be excluded from NATO membership because of the geography or history. It should be clear that Russia does not have a veto over NATO decisions,'' he said.
----
Putin challenges US fears, denies threat of nuclear rogue states
Sunday, June 11 8:13 PM SGT
Agence France Presse
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html?s=asia/headlines/000611/world/afp/Putin_challenges_US_fears__denies_threat_of_nuclear_rogue_states.html
HAMBURG, Germany, June 11 (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin denied Sunday there was nuclear threat from potential "rogue states" in the Middle East or Asia whose existence the US has invoked to justify its controversial plan for an anti-missile shield.
In an interview with the newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Putin reiterated Moscow's opposition to the US national missile defence system, saying it was a grave strategic miscalculation.
"The threat of missiles from 'problem countries' in the Middle East or in the Asian region invoked by the US does not exist in principle, neither today nor in the near future," Putin said.
"The American position on a national missile defence system is a serious error of strategic calculation that could lead to an increase in the strategic threat to both the US and Russia, as well as other states," he stressed.
Russia particularly objects to the 60-billion-dollar anti-missile system because it would breach the landmark Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), the cornerstone of arms control accords since its signature in 1972.
The American project "would lead to the destruction of the stable basis represented by the 1972 ABM accord," Putin said.
The US wants to build a national missile defence system to confront the perceived threat posed by "rogue states" such as Iran and North Korea.
During a Moscow summit last week the two sides failed to agree on how to confront the threat posed by emerging nuclear powers.
Putin has vowed to rip up all arms control accords if Washington proceeds with the system without taking Moscow's security concerns into account.
"Russia is not seeking to become a world power," the Russian leader told Welt am Sonntag: "It is a world power." The Russian leader said he would raise his own proposal of an anti-missile defence system during an official visit to Germany starting Wednesday.
Putin made a surprise proposal last Monday for a joint Russia-NATO missile defence system to protect Europe and Russia against an emerging ballistic missile threat. "In this way a destruction of the balance of forces can be avoided and security for all European tsates ensured," he said Sunday.
Moscow claims the proposal would not violate the ABM treaty. But US Defense Secretary William Cohen objected to the Russian proposal, saying it apparently leave much of Europe and the US defenceless against long-range missiles.
Asked in his interview about hopes of three Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to join NATO, Putin reiterated Moscow's warnings against the three former constituent republics of the Soviet Union joining the western alliance.
Eastward extension of NATO would not favour European stability, and would have "very serious consequences for the continent's entire security system," Putin said.
-------- spying
Greece Seeking to Query Ex-Chief of C.I.A.
New York Times
June 11, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/061100greece-terror.html
ATHENS, June 10 -- An Athens prosecutor said today that he wanted R. James Woolsey Jr., a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, to explain his remark in an interview that Greek politicians had withheld information on the November 17 guerrilla group.
Court officials said the request followed an interview with Mr. Woolsey that was published in the Greek weekly newspaper Pontiki on Thursday, the day that November 17 gunmen killed a British military attaché, Brig. Stephen Saunders, in Athens, the Greek capital.
The newspaper quoted Mr. Woolsey as saying, "During my career in several positions in the U.S. government, there were times that Greek politicians knew much more about November 17 than they wanted to share with us."
Court officials said they wanted Mr. Woolsey to come to Athens and testify.
The Greek police have not captured a single member of the far-left group, which has killed 23 politicians, businessmen and diplomats and attacked banks and businesses with impunity since 1975, when Richard Welch, the C.I.A. station chief in Athens, was killed.
Officers from Scotland Yard police headquarters in Britain arrived in Athens on Friday to help Greece's antiterrorism squad search for the gunmen who killed Brigadier Saunders.
---
Kermit Roosevelt, 84, Director of C.I.A.'s 1953 Coup in Iran
New York Times
June 11, 2000
By IRVIN MOLOTSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/obit-k-roosevelt.html
WASHINGTON, June 10 -- Kermit Roosevelt, a member of the famous American family whose contributions to the nation were in the shadowy world of spy craft instead of the open stage of politics, died Thursday at a retirement community in Cockeysville, Md., near Baltimore. He was 84.
Mr. Roosevelt's best-known exploit was as director of the 1953 coup that overthrew of the leader of Iran, Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a nationalist who concerned Washington because he was supported by the Iranian Communists at the height of the cold war.
Earlier this year, the Central Intelligence Agency's secret history of the coup surfaced, providing a detailed account of the overthrow, which brought Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi to power.
Mr. Roosevelt, the chief of the C.I.A.'s Near East and Africa division, spent much of his time in Tehran, trying to get the shah, depicted in the history as a vacillating coward, to summon the courage to dismiss Mr. Mossadegh.
"On Aug. 3rd," the secret history says, "Roosevelt had a long and inconclusive session with the shah," who "stated that he was not an adventurer, and hence, could not take the chances of one."
The history continued: "Roosevelt pointed out that there was no other way by which the government could be changed and the test was now between Mr. Mossadegh and his force and the shah and the army, which was still with him, but which would soon slip away."
Mr. Roosevelt told the shah that "failure to act could lead only to a Communist Iran or to a second Korea."
On Aug. 16, fearing the coup had failed, the shah fled to Baghdad and the C.I.A. urged Mr. Roosevelt to leave Iran immediately. He refused, insisting that there was still "a slight remaining chance of success."
After the tide started to turn against Mr. Mossadegh, Mr. Roosevelt got one of the coup leaders, Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, out of hiding and he made a radio address to the nation that brought the forces over to the shah's side.
It was the C.I.A.'s first successful overthrow of a foreign government, and the shah stayed in power until the Islamic revolution of 1979.
"For an operation to last 25 years is not so bad," one of Mr. Roosevelt's C.I.A. colleagues, Samuel Halpern, said today. "It fell apart. Every operation cannot go on forever."
Mr. Roosevelt was a grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and a distant cousin of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was born in Buenos Aires, where his father, also named Kermit, was a banker and shipping line official, and he grew up in Oyster Bay, N.Y., near Theodore Roosevelt's Long Island home at Sagamore Hill.
In 1937, Mr. Roosevelt graduated a year ahead of his class at Harvard and married Mary Lowe Gaddis. Mrs. Roosevelt, who lived in the retirement community with her husband, survives him, as do their three sons, another Kermit, of Washington; Jonathan, of Sudbury, Mass., and Mark, of Brookline, Mass.; a daughter, Anne Mason of Chevy Chase, Md.; a brother, Joseph Willard Roosevelt of Orient, N.Y.; and seven grandchildren.
The younger Kermit Roosevelt noted today that the tradition of naming boys Kermit, without a differing middle name or a Jr. or a Roman numeral, could be confusing. He added that alternate Kermits were also known as Kim, and that was the case of his spy father.
That Kim Roosevelt dealt with the notorious Kim Philby when Mr. Philby served in Washington as Britain's liaison to American intelligence during the cold war. Mr. Philby later turned up in Moscow, escaping just as British counterintelligence was closing in on him as a Soviet spy.
The younger Mr. Roosevelt said today, "Philby once said of my father, 'He was the last person you'd expect to be up to his neck in dirty tricks.' "
Mrs. Roosevelt added that her husband never told her what he had done during World War II, when he was in the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the C.I.A.
"That was spook talk," she said. "He didn't talk spooks to me."
His son said today that he thought his father was involved in planning the invasion of Italy.
After graduating from Harvard, Mrs. Roosevelt said, her husband "tried to teach history to the techy boys at Cal Tech," and then entered the military during World War II.
After the war, Mr. Roosevelt stayed on in the intelligence agency and wrote and edited the history of the Office of Strategic Services. After leaving government, he represented American companies in the Middle East and worked in Washington as a lobbyist for foreign governments, including the shah's.
He wrote "Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran," published in 1979.
Frederic P. Hitz, the Weinberg Goldman Sachs Professor of International Relations at Princeton University, said the book "showed how covert actions were authorized in those days, without oversight.
It was just a group of people sitting around in an office at the White House -- not the Oval Office."
Because of the success of the Iranian coup, Professor Hitz said, Mr. Roosevelt "was offered the opportunity to overthrow the government of Guatemala, and he turned it down."
John Waller, one of Mr. Roosevelt's intelligence colleagues, said today that Winston Churchill had asked Mr. Roosevelt to discuss the overthrow of Mr. Mossadegh and, with Mr. Waller paraphrasing, said, "Kim, if I were a young man again, I would have done anything to have worked with you in that operation."
Mr. Waller said that Mr. Roosevelt had been brought up in what the British called "the great game," the secret rivalry between Britain and Russia in the late 19th century.
"Kim was in that Churchillian mode of a 19th-century warrior," Mr. Waller said. "He was a man of the times and a good man to have around during the cold war."
---
Man ordered held in 1966 slaying
USA Today
06/08/00- Updated 03:09 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndsthu03.htm
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - A white man pleaded innocent Thursday to charges that he killed a black farm worker in 1966 in what may have been part of a larger plot to assassinate the Rev. Martin Luther King.
Ernest H. Avants, 69, was ordered held on $100,000 bond after a brief hearing before a federal magistrate. Prosecutors have not said whether they would seek the death penalty.
Avants was indicted by a federal grand jury in the murder of 67-year-old farm worker Ben Chester White on June 10, 1966.
Avants was acquitted of the killing in a Mississippi court in 1967. But federal prosecutors, who claimed jurisdiction because the slaying took place in the Homochitto National Forest, said the jury in that trial was never informed that Avants had confessed.
''Under the law and under any decent sense of the history in these matters, no time is too late to vindicate the country's interest in repudiating the kind of violence ... of which Mr. Avants is charged,'' U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott said.
This is the first murder case federal prosecutors have pursued in a civil rights-era killing on federal property, he said.
Avants has maintained his innocence.
Two other men accused along with Avants - James Jones and Claude Fuller - have died. Jones confessed, but a mistrial was declared in his case. Fuller was never tried.
An FBI report described in The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in January said Avants had confessed to participating in White's killing.
The report quoted Adams County's prosecutor as saying he did not present the confession in court because Avants ''had not been advised of his rights against self-incrimination'' and had been drinking.
The case was closed after Avants' acquittal, but reopened in November after the ABC News program 20/20 reported that White's murder took place on federal property.
The news program said one of the white men confessed to police that White's slaying was orchestrated in the hopes that it would bring civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. to the area so he could be assassinated.
''I was watching this program ... in West Virginia and made the call down here the next day, saying that this case should be opened and pursued,'' said James Kessler Jr., agent in charge of the FBI in Mississippi.
Among other recently reopened cases from that civil rights era, former Ku Klux Klan chief Sam Bowers was convicted in 1998 for the 1966 firebombing death of Hattiesburg civil rights figure Vernon Dahmer.
Byron De La Beckwith is serving a life sentence following his 1994 conviction in the 1963 ambush killing of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers in Jackson.
Last month, two former Ku Klux Klansmen were charged with murder in one of the worst crimes of the era - the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church that killed four black girls.
---
Justice: No conspiracy in King murder
USA Today
06/09/00- Updated 06:39 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsfri05.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - After 18 months, a Justice Department investigation rejected allegations that conspirators aided or framed James Earl Ray in the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. It recommended against further investigation.
The new investigation found no credible evidence to support allegations in recent years from former Memphis bar owner Loyd Jowers and former FBI agent Donald Wilson, and earlier from Ray himself, that a mysterious ''Raoul'' or others, including federal agents, police or black ministers, participated in a plot to kill King.
As in four earlier investigations, the Justice investigators ''found no reliable evidence that Dr. King was killed by conspirators who framed James Earl Ray,'' according to their 150-page report released Friday. ''We found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King.''
''We found no credible evidence to support allegations of any conspiracy to kill Dr. King involving Jowers, Raoul, the Mafia, Memphis police officers, figures involved in the Kennedy assassination, federal agents, U.S. military personnel or African-American ministers close to Dr. King,'' said Barry Kowalski, head of the investigation and one of the department's leading civil rights prosecutors.
''We are convinced of our conclusions beyond a reasonable doubt.''
But the investigation did not convince the King family and some others close to the case.
''We are disappointed,'' said Martin Luther King III on behalf of the family, ''but this is certainly not something we did not expect.'' He recalled that the family had sought an investigation conducted by a ''commission independent of the government, because we do not believe that in such a politically sensitive matter the government is capable of investigating itself.''
The younger King told an Atlanta news conference his family planned no further action but stands by a Memphis civil jury's ruling that Jowers and ''others, including government agencies'' conspired to assassinate King.
In Smartt, Tenn., James Earl Ray's brother Jerry said, ''The American public and the King family believe James was innocent so it doesn't matter to me what the politicians say.'' The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was with King when he was shot, told CNN he still believes other people assisted Ray.
Although Ray pleaded guilty in 1969 to killing King, he claimed three days later - and until his 1998 death in prison - that a mysterious Raoul, later Raul, had framed him.
But the weight of the evidence ''establishes that Raoul is merely the creation of James Earl Ray,'' the report said.
Prodded by the King family's embrace of some of these theories, Attorney General Janet Reno ordered the new probe Aug. 26, 1998, even though two Justice Department investigations, a U.S. House committee and the Shelby County, Tenn., district attorney's office previously studied the murder.
Last December, a Memphis civil court jury ruled for the King family in its wrongful death lawsuit against Jowers and concluded Jowers and ''others, including government agencies'' plotted to kill King.
The new Justice Department probe rejected those findings as well, although King's son Dexter had said after the verdict: ''We know what happened. This is the period at the end of the sentence.''
The Justice team also ''found insufficient evidentiary leads remaining after 30 years to justify further investigation'' of suggestions by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979 and the Shelby County district attorney in 1998 that Ray's surviving brothers may have helped him.
In 1993, Jowers, who owned a tavern across the street from the motel where King was shot, said a produce dealer involved with the Mafia gave him $100,000 to hire an assassin and assured him Memphis police would not be around.
Jowers, who died last month, claimed someone named Raoul gave him a gun and the assassin fired from behind Jowers' bar, not from a rooming house window above it where Ray had stayed.
In many retellings, Jowers ''has contradicted himself on virtually every key point,'' the report said. No physical evidence corroborates Jowers' story, and some contradicts key elements, including the lack of footprints in the muddy ground behind the bar after the shooting.
In 1998, ex-FBI agent Wilson claimed to have found papers 30 years earlier in Ray's abandoned Mustang in Atlanta. Before spurning immunity and ending his cooperation, Wilson turned over part of a page from a 1963 Dallas telephone directory and a piece of paper with handwritten words and numbers.
The name ''Raul'' was handwritten on both papers. The phone directory scrap carried the handwritten 1963 phone number of the Dallas bar owned by Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy. But Kowalski said, ''We don't believe the papers came from Ray's car.''
Wilson's accounts were inconsistent, Justice investigators said. He later claimed also to have found, but did not produce, three other documents, including one with the FBI's Atlanta telephone number. He gave contradictory stories about them being stolen, the report said.
Investigators also found contradictory evidence. Photos showed the Mustang door was closed and locked, not open as Wilson claimed. Ray did not confirm the papers were his. No one saw Wilson when the car was found; he is not in photos of the search.
In the Memphis civil trial, Kowalski said, ''Everything about a conspiracy involving federal agents was based on secondhand and thirdhand hearsay without sufficient substantiation.''
''No eyewitness testimony or tangible evidence directly supported any of the conflicting allegations,'' the report said.
The Justice investigators reinterviewed some witnesses after the trial and concluded: ''No evidence corroborated the various allegations, and other information contradicted them,'' although that was not introduced at trial.
FBI agents did not work on the investigation because the bureau has been accused of conspiring against King.
---
King family rejects Justice Dept. finding
USA Today
6/10/00- Updated 07:08 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncssat01.htm
ATLANTA (AP) - The son of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. says his family plans no further action to try to uncover a conspiracy in his father's 1968 assassination, but they reject a Justice Department finding that there was no evidence of such a plot.
''We are disappointed, but this is certainly not something we did not expect,'' Martin Luther King III said Friday after the Justice Department released results of an 18-month investigation.
As in four earlier investigations, Justice investigators ''found no reliable evidence that Dr. King was killed by conspirators who framed James Earl Ray,'' the 150-page report said. ''We found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King.''
The civil rights leader's son recalled that the family had sought an independent investigation, ''because we do not believe that in such a politically sensitive matter the government is capable of investigating itself.''
King told an Atlanta news conference that his family stands by a Memphis civil jury's ruling that Memphis bar owner Loyd Jowers and ''others, including government agencies'' conspired to assassinate his father.
But the new investigation found no credible evidence to support allegations in recent years from Jowers and former FBI agent Donald Wilson, and earlier from Ray himself, that a mysterious ''Raoul'' - later identified as ''Raul'' - or others, including federal agents, police or black ministers, participated in a plot to kill King and frame Ray.
The Justice Department recommended that no further investigation be conducted.
''We are convinced of our conclusions beyond a reasonable doubt,'' said Barry Kowalski, head of the investigation and one of the Justice Department's leading civil rights prosecutors.
In Smartt, Tenn., James Earl Ray's brother, Jerry, said, ''The American public and the King family believe James was innocent so it doesn't matter to me what the politicians say.''
Although Ray pleaded guilty in 1969 to killing King, he claimed three days later - and until his 1998 death in prison - that he was framed, an account dismissed by the report.
Prodded by the King family's embrace of some conspiracy theories, Attorney General Janet Reno ordered the new probe Aug. 26, 1998, even though two Justice Department investigations, a U.S. House committee and the Shelby County, Tenn., district attorney's office previously studied the murder.
In December, a Memphis civil court jury ruled for the King family in its wrongful death lawsuit against Jowers and concluded Jowers and ''others, including government agencies'' plotted to kill King. The new Justice Department probe also rejected those findings.
In 1993, Jowers, who owned a tavern across the street from the motel where King was shot, said a produce dealer involved with the Mafia gave him $100,000 to hire an assassin and assured him Memphis police would not be around. Jowers claimed someone named Raoul gave him a gun and the assassin fired from behind Jowers' bar, not from a rooming house window above it where Ray had stayed.
In many retellings, Jowers ''has contradicted himself on virtually every key point,'' the report said. No physical evidence corroborates Jowers' story, and some contradicts key elements, including the lack of footprints in the muddy ground behind the bar after the shooting.
In 1998, ex-FBI agent Wilson claimed to have found papers 30 years earlier in Ray's abandoned Mustang in Atlanta. Before spurning immunity and ending his cooperation, Wilson turned over part of a page from a 1963 Dallas telephone directory and a piece of paper with handwritten words and numbers.
The name ''Raul'' was handwritten on both papers. The phone directory scrap carried the handwritten 1963 phone number of the Dallas bar owned by Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy. But Kowalski said, ''We don't believe the papers came from Ray's car.''
Wilson's accounts were inconsistent, said Justice investigators, who also found contradictory evidence. Photos showed the Mustang door was closed and locked, not open as Wilson claimed. Ray did not confirm the papers were his. No one saw Wilson when the car was found; he is not in photos of the search.
-------- us military
BASE CLOSINGS - VOTES IN CONGRESS
Washington Post
Sunday, June 11, 2000; Page M20
By Roll Call Report Syndicate
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-06/11/047l-061100-idx.html
For-35 / Against-63
The Senate refused on Wednesday to authorize two more rounds of military base closings, in 2003 and 2005. Sponsors said shutting down surplus bases would free up at least $20 billion over four years for pressing military needs. Foes said Congress should leave it up to the next president to decide whether there is a need for more closings. The vote occurred during debate on a $310 billion fiscal 2001 defense budget (S 2549) that remained in debate. Four previous rounds of post-Cold War base closings shuttered nearly 100 facilities between 1989 and 1995. A yes vote supported more base closings.
MIKULSKI-NO SARBANES-NO
-------- us nuc facilities
-------- new mexico
Stopping Operations at Los Alamos and Redirecting its Budget to Cleaning Up the Environment, Addressing Health Issues, and Paying Reparations to Affected Communities, and Peoples.
The National Board of Peace Action unanimously adopted the following Resolution on June 11, 2000
Stopping Operations at Los Alamos and Redirecting its Budget to Cleaning Up the Environment, Addressing Health Issues, and Paying Reparations to Affected Communities, and Peoples.
WHEREAS: Article 6 of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty calls for total nuclear disarmament and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is taking over the role of Rocky Flats, escalating their production of plutonium 'pits' for nuclear weapons; and
WHEREAS: Outer Space Treaty requires States not to place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit and states that space is not subject to national appropriation and that LANL researches, develops, and produces the plutonium Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) components and that its work contributes to fulfilling the U.S. Space Command's "Vision for 2020" for dominating space; and
WHEREAS: The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) prohibits the development of a national missile defense (NMD) system and LANL researches and develops components for the NMD system; and
WHEREAS: LANL thus enables the United States to violate international treaties; and additionally,
WHEREAS: LANL has historically disposed of some of its plutonium, uranium, depleted uranium, tritium, beryllium and heavy metals in a haphazard and often unsafe manner, thus contaminating the soil, air, water, vegetation, and irresponsibly endangering the health and lives of people living in Los Alamos and the surrounding areas of New Mexico; and
WHEREAS: LANL has shown little regard for the health and safety of its employees, accidents and releases on LANL property being a regular occurrence; and
WHEREAS: LANL endangers the health, safety, environment, subsistence, and sacred sites of the Pueblos and other Native American communities, and
WHEREAS: The Cerro Grande fire has shown that LANL took no precautions to protect the firefighters or to monitor the effects of possible contamination in communities downwind of the fire, including the farmers in this agricultural area;
THEREFORE, PEACE ACTION DEMANDS, Los Alamos National Laboratory cease all but necessary administrative operations and the Department of Energy and Department of Defense budget allocated to Los Alamos National Laboratory be redirected for cleaning up the environment and addressing health issues.
The U.S. government also must be required to make complete reparations to the communities historically damaged by the operations of LANL.
Therefore, let it be further resolved that this Resolution be sent to Members of Congress, the President, Secretaries of Defense, Energy and State, major candidates for President, Secretary General of the U.N., Security Council members and governments of the middle powers states. It is also to be sent to Abolition 2000 for endorsement by supporting organizations.
CONTACT: Peace Action New Mexico - LANLaction@aol.com 226 Fiesta St., Santa Fe, N.M. 87501 Phone: 505.989.4812
----
N-waste site revitalizes Carlsbad
By Jim Hughes
Denver Post Staff Writer
June 11, 2000
<http://www.denverpost.com/news/news0611a.htm>
CARLSBAD, N.M. - There are 2,150 feet of world overhead, countless tons of it, and Mike Daniels is loving life as his crew mines a new room for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant beneath the shimmering, scrub-oak badlands of the Chihuahuan Desert.
He's the back-slapping, fast-talking, hard-hatted picture of American go-get-'emism underground.
"All the guys in the mining business in this part of the country want to work here!" he yells above the din. "They know it's a good place!" The remote-controlled mining machine, as big and about the same shape as two ice rink Zambonis end to end, is following a red laser beam along the wall, chewing up the salt-bed remnants of an ancient ocean buried by 21 million years of sediment. Its spinning drum of carbide teeth scores the wall of salt, leaving narrow, horizontal ribs.
To the uninitiated, it's a dirty cacophony, but to Daniels - and most of the Carlsbad region of southern New Mexico - it's a wonderful thing.
The space they're making is the stuff of a new economy.
The underground facility, designed as the final storage compound for low-level radioactive waste, some of it from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant northwest of Denver, has brought protests over nuclear weaponry and the shipping of contaminated waste, but also a flood of high-tech and labor-intensive jobs.
This month, the rate of shipments to WIPP will double. For the next 35 years, barrels of waste will be encased - for eternity, if the theory is correct - buried 2,150 feet below the Chihuahuan Desert within a 2,000-foot-thick belt of salt. The timing couldn't have been better for the Carlsbad region.
WIPP comes into its own as potash mining continues to fade, oil and gas receipts fluctuate, and agriculture endures low crop prices and successive drought years. On top of that, tourism centered around nearby Carlsbad Caverns National Park is flat.
Daniels, a former Navy SEAL who has spent most of his life underground chasing minerals, including several years at area potash mines, calls his job at WIPP - as a space miner - the best he's ever had.
"I'll tell you what," he shouts. "I started my career with a box of dynamite and a jack-legged drill and a direction: "Go get it.' For a mining man who's been in the business as long as I have, to be not going for the ore is a little different. But our job is to make the most precise openings. I'm proud of this project, and I'm proud of my men."
The men will grind out the chamber until it measures 300 feet long by 33 feet wide by 13 feet tall. They are early on in a process that ultimately will create 56 storage rooms.
The space is needed to store nuclear waste collected from military weapons plants and research facilities around the country. Now one year into operation - after 20 years of study, regulatory struggle and public debate - WIPP this month will pick up the pace from two truckloads a week to four. Each truck can carry three specially designed containers holding 14 55-gallon drums.
At that pace, all the gloves, boots and other materials that were contaminated by radioactive material at places like Rocky Flats will be buried in the next 3 decades.
"Now that we're operational, it's very much a ramp-up operation," says Donovan Mager, a veteran of the New Mexico newspaper business who now serves as a public-relations officer for the project, administered via a federal contract by the Westinghouse Waste Isolation Division. "We feel good about where we're at, but the only thing we want to do now is get more shipments in here."
And so in nearby Carlsbad and in South Carolina, home of the most distant of the 10 facilities sending waste to WIPP, crews are building more of the transport effort's vacuum-sealed canisters - giant $300,000 Thermoses, essentially. Trucks carry the canisters to WIPP's isolated receiving area, 26 miles east of Carlsbad. Massive elevators then lower the drums nearly half a mile underground to the storage areas, eight "panels" of seven rooms each.
In time, the weight of the world will close up the storage rooms, sealing the poisonous Cold War byproducts in sedimentary layers of salt. The WIPP location was chosen because of these structurally weak beds of salt, which in time will creep back into excavated areas, sealing them off.
The work of building and filling WIPP, and the project's duration, translates into a lot of jobs. WIPP and its contractors already employ more than 1,000 people in and around Carlsbad, which has about 25,000 residents.
And for many, including the miners underground, it's not only work, it's good work, Daniels says.
"The kids that come out here for the first time, they don't know how good this is," he says, marveling at the room's square corners, the fine joints between wall, floor and ceiling, the stringent safety protocols. "But the older guys, hell, the Green Bay Packers couldn't get them off the job. They really couldn't." Above ground, in Carlsbad, officials already are counting the ways WIPP has filled county and municipal coffers.
In 1996, when WIPP wasn't even open, it brought nearly $65.5 million to the area. Its contractors donate a combined $250,000 to area charities every year, officials say. And now the road into town from the north, the road taken by all those WIPP-bound trucks, has four lanes instead of two.
Local economic development officials are looking at ways to use WIPP and the community of scientists and engineers it has brought to town to turn Carlsbad into a research center.
So even though some in New Mexico have opposed the shipping of so much waste to their state - WIPP opened for business in March 1999 only after having dispensed with the last of several citizens' lawsuits - in southern New Mexico, it's recognized as the boon of boons.
"Locally, WIPP's supported pretty heavily," says rancher and Eddy County commissioner Laurie Kincaide. "There was a little resentment at one time from a small group, but that's pretty well dissipated. All the opposition to it has been up north.
"Any kind of garbage is turning into a major industry, anymore," he explains. "It doesn't matter what it is, and this radioactive garbage, they've got to have a place to put it. So far, this is the best they've come up with."
----
USA Today
June 11, 2000
http://usatoday.com/news/states/nmmain.htm
New Mexico
Carlsbad - A nuclear waste dump would be an ideal astronomical observatory because its underground facilities are protected from cosmic rays and surface radiation, astronomers say. Their plan to build the National Underground Research Facility at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns the dump.
---
Parks Official Retiring After Los Alamos Blaze
New York Times
June 11, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/061100nm-alamos.html
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., June 10 -- The parks official who approved a planned burn that went out of control in Los Alamos last month, causing the largest wildfire in state history, has said he will retire in July because of the controversy.
The official, Roy Weaver, who has been superintendent of the Bandelier National Monument for nearly 10 years, has taken responsibility for the decision to start the fire on May 4. He said he had believed conditions were just right for the park's annual regimen of burning brush to stave off a potentially disastrous fire.
But after the fire was started, the humidity did not rise as much as hoped and the wind was higher than expected, gusting over 50 miles an hour. The ensuing wildfire destroyed more than 200 houses in Los Alamos and forced 25,000 people to evacuate.
"I guess heartsick would be the best adjective" to describe how he felt after the fire, Mr. Weaver said. "I was just feeling for those people, what they must be going through. I was worried about their property and keepsakes."
Mr. Weaver was placed on paid administrative leave in May, and a government report blamed Park Service officials for poor planning and several mistakes in carrying out the planned fire.
Mr. Weaver, 60, said that he had planned to retire next April, but that he would do so now because of the fire. Rick Frost, a Park Service spokesman, said the agency's board of inquiry would decide whether to pursue any disciplinary measures against Mr. Weaver.
Officials now say that the fire might have caused $300 million in damage to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. About 8,000 acres there were burned, and officials said 39 temporary structures, including trailers and storage units, were destroyed. No major structures were significantly damaged, they said.
-------- ohio
UT team glimpses element lithium in earliest form
Toledo Blade
June 11, 2000
BY JENNI LAIDMAN BLADE SCIENCE WRITER
mailto:jenni@theblade.com
http://www.toledoblade.com/editorial/news/0f11lith.htm
A University of Toledo astronomy team has found a unique line-of-sight into the heavens, allowing them to glimpse the creation of the element lithium.
The work of astronomy professor Steven R. Federman and doctoral student David C. Knauth was published in the prestigious journal, Nature, last week. It confirms notions of how the light element lithium is formed, while it unveils another conundrum for those hoping to solve why our universe is the way it is.
On Earth, the soft, silvery metal is used in storage batteries, rocket propellants, and nuclear reactor coolants. In the heavens, it and its close elemental relations, boron and beryllium, are oddballs of creation.
Reuven Ramaty, a senior scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said the University of Toledo paper reveals "important findings.''
Dr. Federman and Mr. Knauth "evidentially found a new signature for enhanced cosmic ray fluxes,'' Dr. Ramaty said.
To follow this story, it helps to take a quick look at the major events in the heavens and how we ended up with most of the elements on the periodic table, from hydrogen to uranium.
Event No. 1, as is fitting, is the big bang. In the first three minutes of everything - 3.02 minutes, not to put too fine a point on things - the elements hydrogen and helium appeared.
As elements go, they're humble structures: Hydrogen, a single proton and electron, and helium, with two of each, along with a neutron.
No. 2 event in our very brief and oversimplified history of the universe is the birth of stars. As hydrogen and helium superheated in the cores of natal stars, they formed the basis of all the other elements from carbon to uranium. But lithium, boron, and beryllium vanish in the processes that make the heavier elements.
Which brings us to event No. 3: Supernovae. Supernovae are exploding stars. But there are stars, and there are stars. Supernovae are the death explosions of the most massive stars, those 20 times the mass of our sun. Their blasts are the most energetic events in the universe since the big bang.
When a supernova is born, it sends protons whizzing through space at near-light speeds. These zippy atomic particles are called cosmic rays, the essential catalyst for the creation of lithium, boron, and beryllium. When one of these high-energy protons bumps an atom of carbon or oxygen, a light element results.
"This is where I come into the picture,'' Dr. Federman said. "I've been interested in studies of interstellar space, the gas and dust between the stars.''
There's one other source of light elements, and that's red giant stars. Giant reds are the death-throes of smaller stars, such as our sun. Some kinds of red giants produce lithium as well.
But there is lithium, and there is lithium. Which one you have depends on the number of neutrons the element contains. While each lithium atom has three protons rattling around its nucleus, the number of neutrons may differ. These differing versions of atoms are called isotopes. Some lithium atoms have four neutrons, while others have only three.
When astronomers look into our solar system and analyze the light spectra emitted from various locations in the heavens, they learned that for every lithium atom with three neutrons, there were 12 with four neutrons.
But when Dr. Federman and Mr. Knauth pointed a telescope at the constellation Perseus, in a neighborhood where massive stars are dying, they saw a lithium recipe never seen before. They used the University of Texas McDonald Observatory telescope.
"We found a direction to a star that showed a ratio of 2:1,'' he said. For every lithium atom with three neutrons, they found only two lithium atoms with four neutrons. In other words, instead a ratio of 12:1, it was 2:1.
Dr. Federman realized they were seeing lithium hot off the cosmic ray press.
But here's where the mystery creeps in. With a ratio of 2:1, Dr. Federman expected to find more lithium overall to account for the increase in three-neutron lithium.
But there isn't. Lithium levels in this specially revealing corner of the universe are no greater than in any random corner of the universe.
So what's going on here? No one knows.
"That's the puzzle,'' Dr. Federman said.
"There is no real answer to that yet,'' said Mr. Knauth.
The next step for the UT team will take place in space. The Hubble Space Telescope will aim at the same spot in Perseus at the same angle, but this time, the quarry is boron. Dr. Federman expects observations to begin this fall.
"Cosmic rays are a major source of boron and its isotopes. We want to see if they mirror the lithium [isotope] abundances,'' Dr. Federman said.
The space-based telescope is a necessary platform for boron detection. Boron's light spectra are in the ultraviolet wavelength. UV rays are generally blocked by the Earth's atmosphere.
The team will not be setting their sights on beryllium, however. Beryllium is so scarce in interstellar space, even the most powerful instruments can't detect it, Dr. Federman said.
-------- washington
State's Democrats snub FFTF restart
By Chris Mulick
Tri-City Herald
June 11, 2000
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/2000/0611.html#anchor596187
SPOKANE - U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson Saturday told critics of Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility his office will facilitate a series of meetings between stakeholders to help decide the future of the reactor.
The remarks came during a private meeting with Heart of America Northwest leader Gerald Pollet and his supporters at the state Democratic convention. Richardson, who gave the keynote address at the convention Saturday, promised that the chairman of his advisory board would set up the meetings, Pollet said after his 35-minute talk with the secretary.
It isn't known if the public will be allowed to attend the meetings.
That low-lighted a rough day for FFTF supporters, who originally thought they also would get to meet with Richardson but were later denied, due to a scheduling conflict.
The Tri-Cities contingency also was unable to remove a provision from the party platform that opposed a restart of the reactor. Because most of the delegates voted to approve the platform without amendment, there was no opportunity to pull the provision. Many Tri-City delegates voted against the entire platform as a result.
"We're disappointed, obviously," said Kennewick delegate Marianne Price, also an 8th district legislative candidate, shortly after learning FFTF supporters wouldn't get to meet with Richardson.
Pollet said Richardson wants the meetings to be held without the adversarial atmosphere that often is prevalent during public hearings. He hopes the meetings will give the government all it needs to decide to keep the reactor shut down.
"The secretary assured us that 'No' is on the table," Pollet said. "That is very encouraging. That is not public perception."
That wrapped up two days of Democratic politicking in which the future of the FFTF was a visible sideshow. Motorists coming into town for the convention, any of a series of high school graduations or the Dixie Chicks concert were greeted by anti-FFTF activists holding banners off bridges.
Several dozen protesters staked out the sidewalks in front of the convention center Friday night. FFTF supporters and opponents jockeyed for space as they held up banners during Richardson's keynote address Saturday.
Though some Tri-City delegates continued to work the issue Saturday, the charge to strip anti-FFTF language from the platform died during committee meetings Friday.
"I'm afraid Jerry (Pollet) was ready for us," said Jim Price, who is married to Marianne Price. "They had their troops in there waiting for us."
Pasco's John Skinner said the platform should serve as a wake-up call and force Washingtonians to realize the value of the reactor.
"We know we have a lot of opposition," Skinner said. "We'll stay passionate about it."
As for the rest of the convention, party faithful elected delegates to the national convention and heard speeches from Democratic candidates for a variety of state and federal office.
Like other speakers, Richardson devoted his time to talking up other party candidates. He also pumped up the Clinton/Gore administration, not once mentioning nuclear cleanup issues even as one non-Tri-City delegate shouted, "Clean up Hanford."
Gov. Gary Locke also spoke in general themes, saying his administration will be "damn sure" the federal government funds Hanford cleanup projects to which is has already committed.
The state Republican convention is next weekend in Spokane.
----
Gore Praises Move to Aid Salmon Run
New York Times
June 10, 2000
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/061000wh-gore.html
RICHLAND, Wash., June 9 -- After an hourlong ride in a speedboat up the choppy Columbia River, Vice President Al Gore today announced President Clinton's designation of the Hanford Reach in south-central Washington, one of the most important salmon-spawning beds in the world, as a national monument.
The designation provides protection from dams, dredging and development for 195,000 acres of public land along the river, including the point, which a jeans-clad, wind-blown Mr. Gore examined by boat today, where more than 80 percent of fall chinook salmon spawn.
The new monument surrounds a region that, paradoxically, was already protected -- for other purposes -- by the federal government as part of the Army's secret Manhattan Project, which designed and built the atomic bomb in World War II. The plutonium for the bomb that the United States dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 was made at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near here. The nuclear reactors and their adjacent burial grounds of high-level radioactive waste are excluded from the national monument boundary.
As Mr. Gore told a small crowd today along the banks of the Columbia here, "It is a great irony of our history that in closing off these lands to build great weapons of destruction in service to the cause of freedom, at the same time we actually ended up protecting one of our greatest natural treasures."
"And let me tell you," he added, "I am committed to making sure that we continue to clean up the cold war legacy of contamination on this land."
The lands, under various federal and state orders, are to be cleaned up by 2070. But there is fierce opposition to this move, both from local governments that want to keep control of the area and agricultural interests that want to use the river to irrigate farms.
Representative Richard Hastings, a Republican who represents this area, which has been a buffer zone between the contamination and the community, wrote to the president recently asking him not to make the designation. Mr. Hastings said there was no immediate threat to the river because of a federal law that bans new dams and navigational projects on this part of the river.
Mr. Clinton actually signed the proclamation designating the Hanford Reach and three other areas -- the Ironwood Forest in Arizona, the Canyons of the Ancients in Colorado and Cascade-Siskiyou in Oregon -- as national monuments this morning in Washington.
Aides to Mr. Gore said the president's action relieved the vice president of any official obligation here and allowed him to stage the announcement as a campaign event.
-------- us nuc weapons
VOTES IN CONGRESS
Washington Post
Sunday, June 11, 2000; Page M20
By Roll Call Report Syndicate
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-06/11/047l-061100-idx.html
MAINTAINING NUCLEAR ARSENAL For-51 / Against-47
The Senate voted on Wednesday to prevent any unilateral reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons until after the Pentagon conducts a review to determine the appropriate American arsenal. The vote occurred during debate on S 2549 (above). It blocked a competing measure that sought to permit a U.S. president to order unilateral cuts below the 6,000-warhead level allowed by the START I arms treaty with the former Soviet Union. Backers of unilateral cuts said they would make the world safer by easing pressure on Russia, which is having difficulty securing its large, aging nuclear stockpile. They noted George W. Bush's recent statement that he, as president, would consider unilateral reductions "consistent with our national security." Foes of unilateral cuts said the issue should be set aside until next year. They acknowledged it has been the Senate's intent in recent years to keep President Clinton from ordering unilateral cuts, although Clinton has expressed no desire to do so. A yes vote opposed unilateral warhead cuts by a U.S. president.
MIKULSKI-NO SARBANES-NO
---
Missile Defense Charade
Washington Post
Sunday, June 11, 2000; Page B07
By George F. Will
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-06/11/164l-061100-idx.html
Al Gore may be assuming that the country's complacency about peace in our (and our children's and grandchildren's) time, and the administration's charade concerning defense against ballistic missiles, will prevent this from becoming an important campaign issue. To understand why it should be a central issue, consider two hypotheticals:
After Congress approves normalized trade relations with China, Beijing moves militarily against Taiwan. China invokes the possibility of a nuclear response if the United States interferes, and the U.S. president, governing a nation incapable of defending itself from even a single ballistic missile, is militarily paralyzed.
In 2005 Saddam Hussein reinvades Kuwait, and announces that he has nuclear warheads on six ICBMs capable of striking European capitals. Without being able to offer our European allies defenses against ballistic missiles, the U.S. president probably hesitates to act against Iraq. If he does not hesitate, Congress probably does. And if both want to act, they probably must do so without European allies.
By 2005 the United States could deploy at sea, near Iraq or North Korea, fast interceptors capable of striking an ICBM when doing so is relatively easy--in the boost phase, when the ICBM is hot, hence easy to target, and slow, hence easy to hit. But the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, signed in 1972 with an entity now deceased (the Soviet Union), prohibits sea-based systems with fast interceptors.
The treaty is larded with ambiguities useful to Russia, which wants to stop U.S. defenses (in order to inhibit America's global power; see the hypotheticals above), and useful to the Clinton-Gore administration, which wants to be stopped from deploying an effective missile defense. The treaty permits sea-based "theater" defenses but not "strategic" defenses. A protocol the Clinton administration accepted from Russia in 1997, but never submitted to the Senate for approval, would severely limit the speed of interceptors.
Furthermore, sea-based systems would be best if served by space-based sensors that could track the early path of missiles. (When Iraq launched Scud missiles during the gulf war, satellites could detect bright lights but could not provide accurate tracking information necessary for missile interceptors.) However, the ABM treaty prohibits space-based defenses.
Our European allies worry that U.S. missile defenses that protect only America would encourage a "fortress America" disengagement from Europe. This worry is exacerbated by President Clinton's proposal for a minimalist system (100 interceptors, with one vulnerable radar, in Alaska) that would provide our allies no defense.
It would provide precious little to the United States. But then, Clinton does not believe in missile defense (hence his eight years of dilatory behavior). And the Alaska gambit would satisfy his highest priority, which is to assuage, with minimal action, the public's fear of defenselessness, and to do so in a way that requires minimal modification of the treaty.
Russian officials must be delighted, if mystified, that we are eager to be held hostage by Russia because of our reverence for the ABM treaty. That treaty should, by right, be without force unless resubmitted to the Senate: Under the law properly construed, Russia is not the successor state to the Soviet Union. But Clinton is, to say no more, not a stickler for legality, and he knows the Senate would reject the treaty were it resubmitted.
It is surreal that the Clinton-Gore policy is to continue treating Russia as a nation with which the United States must multiply bilateral agreements designed to maintain a "strategic balance." At the beginning of the 20th century the Ottoman Empire was called "the sick man of Europe." Today that title belongs to Russia, which is gripped by a public health crisis without precedent in an industrialized nation with mass education. As its population shrinks and its economy contracts, it is, increasingly, a Third World country that cannot afford even to maintain the First World nuclear arsenal that is the sole basis of its claim to great power status. The dialectic, now several millennia old, whereby offensive and defensive capabilities alternate in dominating military affairs, did not end with the development of ballistic missiles. The offensive threat they pose will produce increasingly sophisticated defenses. The fundamental question, says Paul Wolfowitz, undersecretary of defense under President Bush, is whether misplaced American reverence for the ABM treaty will enable Russia to restrict America to only those defenses permitted under a minimally modified ABM treaty.
That, says Wolfowitz, would mean trying to develop defenses "with one hand tied behind our back and four fingers of the other hand tied together." Which is, essentially, the position of the Clinton-Gore administration.
---
A LOOK AT . . . Missile Defense
Washington Post
Sunday, June 11, 2000; Page B03
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-06/11/147l-061100-idx.html
Q. Important U.S. allies in Europe and in the Third World argue that a U.S. missile defense system would alter the balance of power so dramatically that it becomes an offensive weapon rather than a deterrent. Some say it might even trigger a new arms race. What would you tell them?
That's the question that Outlook asked five supporters of a national missile defense to answer. Until recently, the debate over such a system has focused largely on whether it could work. But last week at the U.S.-Russia summit in Moscow, the Clinton administration's goal to build a limited missile defense became a central point of contention and brought new attention to the concerns being raised by other nations. Here are the supporters' replies:
Jon Kyl, a Republican senator from Arizona, has taken a leading role in advocating a missile defense system.
Does building missile defenses cause an arms race? History has an answer. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was based on the theory that prohibiting a comprehensive national missile defense--thereby preserving the retaliatory capability of the other side--would reduce the incentive for both nations to build offensive forces. But it didn't. In the 15 years after the signing of the treaty, the Soviet Union's inventory of strategic nuclear warheads grew from around 2,000 to about 10,000, and the U.S. arsenal grew from around 3,700 to about 8,000. Clearly, restraints on defenses did not prevent the most massive arms race in history.
There is no reason to believe the result would be any different today. In fact, Ronald Reagan knew the Soviet Union couldn't afford to engage in an offense-defense contest with us; Mikhail Gorbachev understood it, too. Today, Russia is even less able to commit the financial resources needed for an offensive arms race, regardless of what we do. Russian officials themselves candidly acknowledge this; in 1998, Russia's Security Council approved a plan submitted by Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev that admitted that by 2010 Russia will not be able to maintain more than 1,500 strategic warheads. So, no--deployment of a very limited, non-threatening U.S. missile defense system will not cause Russia to engage in an offensive arms race.
The idea that a defensive system might decrease our security embodies the worst Cold War thinking. It implies that U.S. relations with Russia and China ultimately rest on our ability to destroy each other. That is no longer true. We must now contend with a different threat: If a deliberate, unauthorized or accidental launch sent a missile toward our shores tomorrow, the president's only option would be to wait to see where the missile landed. He would then have to decide whether to incinerate the country that had already killed thousands of Americans. Missile defense allows us to avoid this awful situation.
And its protection must be offered to our friends and allies. That should persuade them to support our effort because it will then be clear that the United States has no intention of "decoupling" our security from theirs.
But even if we cannot convince every ally, we must muster the leadership necessary to defend ourselves. As former secretary of state Henry Kissinger recently observed, "Deliberate vulnerability when the technologies are available to avoid it cannot be a strategic objective, cannot be a political objective, and cannot be a moral objective of any American president." The Cold War is over; we must make every effort not only to deter, but to defend against, ballistic missile attacks. These tools, combined with responsible arms control efforts, can only enhance our security.
Michael Krepon is president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonprofit institution that studies international security issues.
I used to worship at the altar of Mutual Assured Destruction, the basic underpinning of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Now that the Cold War's over, though, I'm an apostate. While no defense can possibly negate every missile threat, some defenses are worth buying. A limited national defense--and I emphasize the word limited--can help us replace MAD with Mutual Assured Security.
Under the theology of MAD, even limited defenses are bad because they generate arms races. This was true during the Cold War, when Moscow and Washington were locked in a nuclear competition in which each was deterred from using its bloated and hair-triggered nuclear arsenal by the belief that the other would strike back. But arms racing between the United States and Russia--a country with a national budget roughly the size of Belgium's--is over. No matter what the United States does on missile defenses, Moscow's aging nuclear stockpile will decline markedly.
Today, the arms competition to watch is in Asia. Whatever Washington decides on national missile defenses, Beijing will continue to modernize and expand its nuclear arsenal. But an intelligent U.S. policy can restrain that modernization and its consequences.
China's strategic modernization policy is linked to the question of Taiwan--and to Chinese fears that the United States would intervene in a China-Taiwan conflict. As Taiwan drifts out of China's orbit, China is not only upgrading its short-range missiles but also slowly, purposefully developing an intercontinental nuclear capability that could place the U.S. homeland at risk.
If Washington seeks to negate Beijing's nuclear threat with a national missile defense, China will respond by building more missiles. And that could spill over into the subcontinent: India would likely acquire a more significant nuclear deterrent, which, in turn, would put pressure on Pakistan to increase its force levels.
So the size of the U.S. national missile defense program is crucial. Current technologies can only counter limited and low-probability threats of an unauthorized, accidental or rogue state missile launch. An ambitious national missile defense program would needlessly compound America's problems with China--as well as with Russia and our allies. Arms racing in Asia can be minimized if we put realistic limits on national missile defenses.
Thus the ABM treaty can and should be modified to permit a modest insurance policy for our homeland and strong defenses where they are needed most--close to problem states. Cold War treaties continue to serve a useful purpose in today's world: They have become the centerpiece of cooperative threat reduction efforts by the United States and Russia. The safest pathway to transition from MAD to Mutual Assured Security lies not in tearing up the ABM Treaty, but in adapting it.
Steve Cambone is director of research at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. The views expressed here are his own.
The international system is less stable today than it was at the end of the Cold War.
North Korea is developing a ballistic missile that has the potential to place a nuclear weapon on American soil. China has brandished ballistic missiles to create a crisis over Taiwan. Russia is supplying Beijing with substantial technical assistance to develop a modern missile force. Pakistan and India have demonstrated their ability to attack each other. Iran can attack its neighbors now and, within five years, could be able to threaten the United States with ballistic missiles.
This activity is being driven by their national ambitions--not by any American missile defense plans.
But a missile defense, assuming it is deployed, will provide an essential capability to address the instabilities this activity has created. It will complement, not replace, the nuclear offensive forces we already have to deter aggression. It will discourage the acquisition of new missiles by lesser powers, because it will reduce the utility of those missiles. And it will provide the United States with protection against the first weapons launched should deterrence ever fail.
A limited defensive capability will not upset the balance between the United States and Russia. Russia claims its new intercontinental ballistic missile, designed in the Soviet era, is able to defeat any defense; and its mobility--it can be loaded onto trucks and transported by road--reduces to very low levels its vulnerability to a first strike. Russia is also working on a new submarine-launched ballistic missile. It already deploys an ABM-Treaty-compliant defense around Moscow. In other words, in a world of Start III force levels, Russia has little to fear from limited U.S. defense deployments.
China, meanwhile, has been modernizing its offensive forces for more than a decade. The CIA reports that Beijing is already committed to adding, by 2015, "tens of survivable land- and sea-based mobile missiles" to its current silo-based force of roughly 20 missiles. If the United States deploys a limited defense, China's planned modernization will leave the balance roughly where it is today. If the Chinese expand their arsenal beyond current projections, then they do so out of strategic ambition--not in response to a U.S. deployment.
A limited defense is not destabilizing under the Cold War calculus of assured destruction. More importantly, we should be looking to move away from a Cold War framework based on an adversarial relationship. That is not a framework we should want to perpetuate with Russia. It is not one we should wish to construct with China. A limited missile defense deployment can assist in making the transition to a framework based on respect for other nations' legitimate security interests and on fair dealing in bilateral relations.
Richard Perle, assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is advising Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush on missile defense and other national security issues.
Today, June 11, 2000, the United States stands naked before its enemies, unable to intercept even a single ballistic missile aimed, by accident or design, at our territory. Many Americans would be shocked to learn that this condition of abject vulnerability is the freely chosen policy of the U.S. government.
Frozen in the Cold War like a fly in amber, the Clinton-Gore administration believes our exposure actually makes us safer. Therefore, it argues, the vulnerability that developed during the Cold War should become a permanent fixture of American policy, enshrined in a trivially modified--and thereby reinvigorated--Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
The administration and its arms control acolytes oppose our building a technologically advanced defense against ballistic missiles. Instead, they are considering a hopelessly inadequate system in Alaska that would fail to protect much of the United States or any of our allies, a system designed more to remain within the confines of the ABM Treaty than to defend the country.
The administration argues that a serious defense, even if limited, would precipitate an arms race because other nuclear powers, especially Russia, would seek to counter it by building additional nuclear weapons in numbers sufficient to overwhelm any defense we might deploy. This is why (according to talking points prepared for recent meetings with the Russians) the administration has sought to assure the Russians that even if we build an ineffective defense in Alaska, Russia will be able to incinerate the United States after a massive American nuclear strike. It is hard to imagine a mind-set more reflective of the Cold War than that. Yet this is the logic that animates the administration's belief that the ABM Treaty is the "cornerstone" of strategic stability.
But far from assuring "stability," the Cold War doctrine that we must seek safety through voluntary vulnerability is dangerously ill-conceived. Consider the core of the administration argument, that the Russians would build more nuclear weapons if we were to build a ballistic missile defense.
Since we have no defense, a nuclear force consisting of even one missile could do catastrophic harm to Los Angeles or Washington or New York. Suppose we were to deploy a defense capable of countering not one, but a few hundred incoming warheads. With such a defense, our vulnerability to such nuclear powers as Britain and France might be eliminated. Would the British or French feel compelled to build more nuclear weapons to overpower our defense? Of course not. They do not regard the United States as their enemy. They do not fear an American attack on London or Paris.
Now that the Cold War is over, should Russia regard us as an enemy? We are more likely to send Vladimir Putin a check than a massive barrage of missiles with nuclear warheads. Would it make sense for him to respond to an American defense against North Korea or Saddam Hussein by building more missiles? And what about China? We've just sent them an invitation into the world trading system. Should they fear an American missile attack? And even if China did think in these terms, should we remain vulnerable to the world just to reassure them?
By clinging to the idea that the security of others is diminished if the United States is protected against missile attack, the administration, perhaps unwittingly, and certainly ironically, actually perpetuates the anxiety of the Cold War. And that is a climate we must now transcend.
William S. Cohen is the U.S. secretary of defense.
The United States is developing a national missile defense system that is designed to improve security and stability without triggering a new arms race.
At one time, we considered the Soviet Union our greatest military threat; now Russian and U.S. soldiers are serving together in Bosnia and Kosovo, and we are cooperating to reduce our nuclear arsenals. Today, we face a new threat: Iraq, Iran, North Korea and other rogue countries are attempting to build or buy nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles to deliver them.
Rogue countries do not need long-range missiles to intimidate their neighbors; they've demonstrated that they already have ways to accomplish this goal. Instead, they want long-range missiles to coerce and threaten more distant countries in North America and Europe. Presumably, they believe that even a small number of missiles against which we have no defense could be enough to sway our actions in a crisis.
Consider the dangers of such a miscalculation. If a renegade state mistakenly decided that it could intimidate us by threatening to launch a missile against the United States or an ally, it could trigger a destructive and unnecessary war. Retaliation after the fact would not compensate for the damage done. The planned national missile defense system is designed to counter this threat before one of these rogue state leaders attempts to blackmail the United States into shrinking from protecting our interests, including commitments to our allies. Thus, the United States is developing a missile defense system that would protect all 50 states from a limited attack of perhaps a few dozen warheads.
Later this year, President Clinton will decide whether to proceed toward deployment after analyzing the threat, the program's capabilities, its cost and the strategic interests of the United States and our allies, including the impact on arms control. If he decides to go forward, the president has stated that he would share this technology with our allies. Three aspects of the program will make it clear that the system is purely defensive, not offensive.
First, our proposed system would be too small to defeat Russia's nuclear force or to undermine its deterrence. Russia has approximately 6,000 strategic nuclear weapons today; even under Russia's proposal for future force reductions, it would have 1,500, more than enough to overwhelm a defensive system that is incapable of defeating a large attack because of technical limits and its small number of intercepters. Such a small system would give Moscow no reason to increase its nuclear forces or, indeed, to balk at additional force reductions required by the START II Treaty.
Second, we strongly prefer to develop and deploy our protective system under an updated version of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which has served as a stabilizing factor in our relations with Russia. The treaty allows limited defenses, and Russia today has a limited missile defense system around Moscow. We do not consider that to be an offensive system. Similarly, Russia would have no basis to see our limited system as offensive. The treaty allows amendments to fit new strategic realities. Our proposed amendments would, once mutually accepted, enable us to deploy our system within an arms control framework.
Third, we are taking steps to work with Russia to detect and monitor missile launches, and we are prepared to consider further cooperative action as a supplement to--but not as a substitute for--our defensive program.
In the face of new threats, a national missile defense system will discourage attacks against the United States. It will enhance deterrence and improve stability. An America that is adequately defended will be a better ally and a continuing force for peace and stability.
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The missile defense shield It could well make the world more dangerous
Bergen Record
Sunday, June 11, 2000
http://www.bergen.com/editorials/miss20000611.htm
PLANS FOR a national missile defense system, both the Clinton administration's and George W. Bush's, are highly questionable and downright frightening. Our allies in Europe, along with Russia and China, recognize what U.S. political leaders and the Pentagon apparently cannot see: that a national missile defense shield would cause far more problems than it would solve, if it solved anything.
President Clinton supports a limited shield that would protect all 50 states from a small number of nuclear missiles launched by "rogue" governments such as North Korea or Iran. Unlike former President Reagan's "Star Wars" plan, it would not involve space-based lasers shooting down missiles but "interceptors" launched from the ground. A new radar center in Alaska would be the first step. But the Pentagon has repeatedly postponed the shield system's next test, now scheduled for July.
In fact, there is no conclusive evidence at this point that such a system could work, even though $60 billion has been spent over two decades on missile shield research and testing. Supporters say it's just a matter of time and of refining the technology. But last week, a report surfaced that indicates the Pentagon may have rigged testing up to now and that the shield could not tell the difference between a real warhead and decoys. Pentagon officials say the system would work against unsophisticated nuclear attacks.
In Moscow two weeks ago, Mr. Clinton tried to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to support a U.S. missile shield, or at least be willing to amend the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty -- which forbids defensive missile systems -- so the United States could build one.
Mr. Putin strongly resisted the appeals. And the system is indeed a bad idea for many reasons. The strongest argument against the shield is that it could re-ignite the nuclear arms race, which supposedly died with the Cold War's end.
Russia and other nations might well think the United States would lose interest in reducing the world's existing nuclear arsenals because it would feel safe behind its nuclear shield. In fact, Mr. Bush and some Republican congressional leaders make no secret of their intention to greatly expand such a shield to protect the nation from all-out nuclear war. They would return to some version of Mr. Reagan's original Star Wars plan.
But even a limited shield could leave our European allies believing they would have to fend for themselves on strategic defense matters. It might even encourage them to make separate deals with the Russians.
And it might well cause Russia and China to expand their nuclear arsenals to save face or protect themselves. Existing arms-reduction treaties could be destroyed, and U.S. relations with China and Russia could be severely damaged.
As the article on the front page of this section today notes, there is also concern that India and Pakistan, already extremely tense neighbors, could be drawn into a new arms race. India considers China a strategic threat, and a Chinese arms buildup could spur India to do the same. Fearing an escalation by its enemy, India, Pakistan might then increase its arms.
Mr. Putin has suggested an alternative plan to the U.S. missile shield: Russia, Europe, and the United States sharing interceptor rockets based near rogue nations such as North Korea or Iraq. But that alternative, which raises major problems of its own, also assumes the technology would work.
Mr. Clinton has said he will decide by autumn whether to begin building the shield, to be ready by 2005. With the Cold War over and the United States making progress in relations with Russia and China, why should this nation take a step that could resume the arms race and endanger the world? The United States must protect itself from terrorism, but terrorism can take many forms, and experts disagree about the seriousness of the threat of a missile from North Korea or Iraq.
In fact, the Clinton administration has at least partly embraced the missile shield, not out of security concerns but out of political expediency, in order to protect itself and Democrats from Republican charges they are weak on defense.
Given the questions about its effectiveness and the grave threats it could pose to world stability, a U.S. missile shield could be counter-productive. Rather than protect the nation from a rogue missile, it could actually make us even more vulnerable to a large-scale nuclear threat.
-------- us politics
Book disturbing indicator of Gore's radical views
By John R. Lott Jr.,
Special to the Hartford Courant,
June 11, 2000
http://www.paducahsun.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200006/11+00 P6_editorial.html+20000611+editorial
Vice President Gore is battling with Green Party candidate Ralph Nader for the hard-core environmentalist vote for president. In response to environmentalists' claims that Gore is taking their votes for granted, Gore's campaign points to Gore's recently re-released book, "Earth in the Balance," as evidence of what his administration would do. Indeed, if the book is a good indicator, the extremes to which it goes in supporting the environmentalist cause should give even the most radical environmentalists comfort. The book paints a grim future of overpopulation, mass starvation and death from disease and pollution, and suggests that only drastic changes in our lifestyles can prevent such a global nightmare. The American automobile is, for example, "more deadly than that of any military enemy we are ever again likely to confront."
Gore expresses such great fear that he even proposes dispensing with the usual goal of an impartial press: The media should not give "equal weight" to both sides in environmental debates such as global warming, for "it undermines the effort to build a solid base of public support for difficult actions we must soon take." Self-censorship is also justified because "98 percent of the scientists" share his view that man-made pollution is responsible for global warming.
His 98 percent figure, of course, represents just one of the book's many exaggerations. At the time that he wrote the book, a Gallup poll revealed that only 18 percent of climate experts thought identifiable man-caused warming had occurred (whereas 49 percent held the opposite view and 33 percent did not know). Opinions today are similar.
Gore advocates self-censorship on yet another ground: People are addicted to consumption and will desperately grasp at false hopes to maintain their addiction. The trouble supposedly started when God's importance in peoples' lives diminished due to the start of the "scientific era." In Gore's own words:
"But with God receding from the natural world to an abstract place, the patriarchal figure in the family (almost always the father) effectively became God's viceroy, entitled to exercise godlike authority when enforcing the family's rules. As some fathers inevitably began to insist on being the sole source of authority, their children became confused about their own roles in a family system that was severely stressed by the demands of the dominant, all-powerful father. ...
"One of the ways dysfunctional families enforce adherence to rules and foster the psychic numbness on which they depend is by teaching the separation between mind and body and suppressing the feelings and emotions that might otherwise undermine the rules."
How exactly fathers create this separation between their children's minds and bodies is never explained, but the resulting cleavage supposedly produces an emptiness that is alleviated only through consumption. This "mental illness," as Gore labels it, has created for people the illusion that they want "the food on the supermarket shelves, the water in the faucets in our homes, the shelter and sustenance, the clothing and purposeful work, our entertainment." He writes of "a false world of plastic flowers and Astroturf, air conditioning and fluorescent lights ... frozen food for the microwave oven."
But even more worrisome is Gore's perspective of those who hold opposing views. After classifying "denial" as a serious mental illness, Gore charges that those who criticize environmental programs are themselves suffering from "a well-established form of denial." Those who oppose him are not just wrong, but sick.
Largely because of people's inability to make the right decisions, Gore wants centralized government regulations to solve environmental problems. Take his example of California's water shortages during 1987-92. While ignoring the oft-noted claim that extremely subsidized prices reduce farmers' incentives to carefully economize on water, Gore blames the shortage on farmers watering their crops so much that they stunt plant growth. Gore's remedy is detailed watering regulations to keep apparently misguided farmers from harming their crops while simultaneously freeing up water for others. As with essentially all environmental problems, Gore sees the proper regulations as painlessly making everyone better off.
Possibly Gore's view of most people not being able to handle the truth justifies his book presenting exaggerated claims and distorted evidence. After all, he is only following the advice that he has already given the media: Make things look as bad as possible. Yet there is a nagging fear of what he might do if elected president. What other policy issues are so compelling as to justify withholding evidence from voters? When else will he discourage a free debate in the press and question the mental health of his opponents?
*Lott is a senior research scholar at Yale Law School.
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Gore Fires First in Soft-Money Offensive
New York Times
June 11, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/061100thisweek-review.html
The subject was helping people afford prescription drugs. But the object was getting Vice President Al Gore a promotion.
"Al Gore is taking them on," the announcer declared, "fighting for a Medicare prescription drug benefit for seniors like Bob Darthez."
Mr. Gore and Mr. Darthez, a 74-year-old Medicare recipient, were the star players in the first national commercial of the general election, a 30-second spot by the Democratic National Committee that ran this weekend in 15 states, including Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio, all considered especially decisive this fall.
Democrats say the advertising offensive that runs until the conventions in late July and August will cost them at least $25 million. Some of that will be paid with soft money, the unrestricted donations that corporations, individuals and unions can make to the parties.
In a March 14 e-mail message, Mr. Gore had challenged Gov. George W. Bush to a bilateral ban on the use of soft money to pay for issue commercials. So Republicans were only too happy to point out that the vice president was the first to go back on the offer. But Mr. Gore asserted that he could not be bound by a proposal that Mr. Bush had rejected. (The exchange occurred just as the Senate was approving a campaign finance reform measure, imposing financial disclosure requirements on tax-exempt special interest groups that raise and spend money secretly on political activities.)
At week's end, the Republicans were preparing to unveil their own "party-building" ads on behalf of Mr. Bush, to run in all the states in which Mr. Gore and Mr. Darthez are appearing.
For all the rancor over campaign spending, however, Republicans were making plans for a national party convention in Philadelphia that is to feature a lot more celebration than denigration. The convention's traditional "attack" night, reserved for giving the rival candidate a pasting, will be replaced with unending hurrahs for the party's standard-bearer, Republicans said.
"Each night will have a positive discussion of Governor Bush's proposals," said Karen P. Hughes, Mr. Bush's communications director.
In other words, one long feel-good commercial.
PETER MARKS
Perot May Not Run
In his quest for the Reform Party's presidential nomination, Patrick J. Buchanan got a major lift when a spokesman for Ross Perot, the party's founder and two-time nominee, said Mr. Perot had all but decided not to seek the nomination this year. That's bad news for Mr. Buchanan's opponents, who fear he will impose his conservative social views on a party that has taken no official position on such issues. John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party, which favors across-the-board government reform, is preparing to fight Mr. Buchanan for the nomination.
MICHAEL JANOFSKY
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High-Level Attention For State House Seat
New York Times
June 11, 2000
Political Briefing
By B. DRUMMOND AYRES JR.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/061100political-briefing.html
Why should President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore suddenly take interest in a special election in an obscure state legislative district in Pennsylvania?
Starting tomorrow, Mr. Clinton will be heard on radio spots and in phone-bank messages urging voters in the Scranton-area district to support the Democratic candidate, Jim Wansacz.
Then on Tuesday, Mr. Gore is scheduled to campaign for Mr. Wansacz.
Not to be politically skunked, the Republican candidate, Tom Parry, has called on the state's popular governor, Tom Ridge, for help. Mr. Ridge will also campaign in the Scranton area on Tuesday.
The reason for all this sudden high-level attention on state House District 114 -- and the attention won't end with the race in the 114th -- is redistricting, a sleeper issue in Election 2000.
As soon as the 2000 Census is completed, legislatures around the country, including the Pennsylvania Legislature, will begin using the new numbers to redraw state and federal legislative districts. A rough rule holds that the political party that controls both the governor's office and the legislature in a state can redraw district lines so that one of every five districts tilts in its favor.
Republicans control both the governor's office and the Legislature in Pennsylvania. But their hold on the 203-member Pennsylvania House is wispy thin -- 102 Republicans, 100 Democrats -- and the seat in the 114th is up for grabs on June 20 because the incumbent, a Republican, resigned after being convicted of perjury.
In recent years, $250,000 would finance a good run for a seat in the Pennsylvania House. This year, Mr. Wansacz and Mr. Parry each expect to spend double that.
Nashville Billboards Bring Smiles to G.O.P.
Shortly after Vice President Al Gore moved his campaign headquarters from Washington to downtown Nashville in search of an outside-the-Beltway image, anti-Gore ads began showing up on billboards near the new digs. Many were paid for by the Republican National Committee, and the committee's chairman, Jim Nicholson, said he hoped Mr. Gore and his aides found them so annoying that "their teeth hurt, like scratching nails on a blackboard."
Typical ad: A picture of Mr. Gore embracing President Clinton, with a Gore quote underneath from the impeachment days: "One of our greatest presidents."
Whether the ads set the Gore camp's teeth on edge is but a guess. But this much is clear:
Last week the Gore headquarters was moved again, to a suburban mall where nary a billboard is in sight.
Needed more office space, Gore aides explained.
Needed more space between the office and the billboards, Republican officials gloated.
Congressman Changes Ways After a Defeat
When Representative Matthew G. Martinez, a Democrat from California's San Gabriel Valley, announced this year that he would seek a 10th term, he anticipated, as always, that his biggest fight would be in the primary.
His Congressional district, the 31st, is heavily Democratic.
What Mr. Martinez did not anticipate was that his leading supporters in past primaries, the State Democratic Party and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, would abandon him and side with State Senator Hilda Solis, maintaining that she was more in tune with the district's voters and their needs.
He lost, beaten better than 2 to 1, the only incumbent in the country to suffer that political ignominy so far this year. Come the fall, Senator Solis faces no Republican opponent.
In defeat, Representative Martinez seems to be a changed politician.
Before the March 7 primary, he was known as a faithful, party-line legislator who voted with his Democratic colleagues more than 90 percent of the time on crucial issues. But since the primary, according to an analysis of his votes by The Los Angeles Times, he has stuck with the Democrats on party-line issues only about 20 percent of the time.
Why, given that the Democrats, if they hold ranks on a crucial issue, need only a handful of Republican defectors to carry the day?
He's not saying.
A Spot for LaRouche? No Way, Party Says
Like Rodney Dangerfield, Lyndon LaRouche says he don't get no respect.
Or delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
Mr. LaRouche is running for president. Again. He says he is a Democrat, perhaps the only one who can save the nation, and maybe the world, from an economic and social implosion.
But the Democratic Party says he is a convicted felon (mail fraud involving fund-raising) with political beliefs that are "explicitly racist and anti-Semitic."
Nevertheless, Mr. LaRouche continues to campaign as a Democrat and, in states where election officials permit his name on the ballot, he draws some votes, sometimes thousands of votes. In last month's Democratic primary in Arkansas, for example, he got more than 53,000 votes, or 22 percent of the total cast. The other candidate on the ticket, Vice President Al Gore, got 194,000 votes.
So does Mr. LaRouche get to go to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles with 22 percent of Arkansas's 48 convention delegates? Or with delegates from any other state?
No way, says the Democratic National Committee. If he shows up, committee officials say, he will be barred from the convention and, they add, courts have ruled several times that such exclusion is legal.
Mr. LaRouche denies he is a racist or an anti-Semite. As for his fraud conviction, he says he went to prison and paid his debt to society. His big vote in Arkansas, he argues, proved his viability as a candidate. "In Arkansas," he says, "reality struck."
As Senator Tim Hutchinson, the chairman of the Bush campaign in Arkansas, sees it, the reality is that 53,000 Democrats "couldn't stomach Al Gore" so they voted for a candidate "not famous for being somebody you can support."
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How Well-Read Should a President Be?
New York Times
June 11, 2000
By MICHAEL BESCHLOSS
WASHINGTON -- Lyndon Johnson was no great reader. But his handlers thought he had better look like one. Thus when Life's Hugh Sidey questioned Johnson's staff about his reading habits, all swore that L.B.J. was a voracious reader. But when pressed for examples, aide after aide mentioned the same book -- Barbara Ward's "The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations."
Johnson's former press secretary, George Reedy, observed years later that his boss's I.Q. "took a back seat to very few others." "But," Reedy said, "he simply could not see a concept without an immediate, pragmatic objective."
Among the modern presidents, Johnson was hardly alone. If an intellectual is defined as someone passionately interested in ideas for their own sake, then in the past century, we have sent exactly one intellectual to the White House -- Woodrow Wilson. Yet it seems that in every presidential campaign season, we demand that our candidates prove their depth. They are asked to tell us the books they've read, what presidents they've been influenced by, how they did in school. This campaign season has proved no exception, and attention has been focused on the presidential finalist George W. Bush.
Certainly no one would argue that intellectual curiosity is unimportant in a president. But much as a historian who writes books might prefer to argue otherwise, it is harder to make the case that great leaders must be great scholars.
Wilson was a political scientist who had spent his career imagining what presidents must do to influence Congress and the people. Wilson's great achievement as president was to persuade Americans, with impressive subtlety, to accept radical economic reforms and internationalism.
In those days, before the age of mass media and mass participation, a president had to convince the elites that owned newspapers and ran political organizations of his cause. This allowed and even encouraged the nuances of a political philosopher. But Wilson was so much more a man of theory than of action that he resisted compromise and sabotaged his own effort to win American participation in the League of Nations.
Ronald Reagan's presidential persona was almost the opposite of Wilson's. Mr. Reagan was a puckish booster for Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt (he admired F.D.R.'s dramatic style, not his ideology), and he was conversant with the ideas of Russell Kirk and some other conservative thinkers of his day, which he used to buttress his preconceptions about big government.
But Mr. Reagan rarely showed interest in the historical precedents for what he was doing. In a way, this nonintellectualism helped him. In the age of the mass market, had Mr. Reagan spoken with the complexity of a Wilson, he might not have been so successful. Instead, it was the simplicity of his convictions, repeated over and over again, that helped him oversee a transformation of American political thought -- to the conservatism of the 1980's. (Mr. Reagan's Olympian approach could also blind him, as in the Iran-contra scandal.)
Two of the 20th century's most commanding presidents -- Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson -- exercised strong leadership without being much more than casual students or readers. Roosevelt was a gentleman's "C" Harvard student with a short attention span. As a presidential candidate, he was derided by Walter Lippmann as the "Prince of Pap."
Lyndon Johnson was painfully sensitive about his modest education at Southwest Texas State Teachers College. He was always searching for gimmicks -- White House symposiums, intellectuals-in-residence -- that would give him the scholarly patina that John Kennedy had enjoyed.
They didn't work. After a meeting with the president, one historian blustered, "Doesn't that man know what I do? He asked me to write a speech for him on foreign affairs.
. . . My specialty is the desert!"
Yet Roosevelt's and Johnson's nonintellectualism seldom got in the way. They enlisted legions of scholars in and out of government in the effort to build both the New Deal and the Great Society.
Yes, presidents should read books, and a host of modern presidents have been changed by what they have read in office. Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August," which traced the miscalculations that brought World War I, emboldened Kennedy to avoid similar errors during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After reading Robert Blake's "Disraeli," Richard Nixon emulated the 19th-century British leader by surprising enemies with liberal policies (like the opening to China).
As we assess Al Gore and George W. Bush in this campaign, we must also remember that appearances can be deceiving. As president, Dwight Eisenhower was content to let Democrats lampoon his "lowbrow" tastes in music and literature (Lawrence Welk and Louis L'Amour). But, as we now know, Ike had both a formidable command of military history, gained through decades in the Army, and an intellect that allowed him, more than anyone realized, to manage the peace and prosperity of the 1950's.
Eisenhower's two-time opponent, Adlai Stevenson, was revered on the Upper West Side and in Cambridge, Ann Arbor and Berkeley as the "thinking person's candidate," an egalitarian lover of literature, history and ideas. Only long afterward did those outside his circle discover that, while Stevenson had a pleasing respect for academics and the humanities, and while he took impressive care to write many of his own speeches, he could go quite happily for months or years without picking up a book. Indeed, on his nightstand, on the day he died, was but a single volume -- the Social Register.
Michael Beschloss, the author most recently of "Taking Charge," on the Johnson White House tapes, is writing a history of the Lincoln assassination.
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EDITORIAL OBSERVER
Trotting Out the Latest Reinvention of Al Gore
New York Times
June 11, 2000
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/editorial/11sun3.html
At the risk of self-parody, Al Gore is trying once again this month to break out of a slump by reintroducing himself to voters. He isn't changing his clothes this time, but he is avoiding personal attacks and unveiling big policy ideas connected in some way to life stories. Yet Mr. Gore still seems unable to exploit his obvious advantages as a partner in an administration with policies that most Americans support.
Why, the candidate must wonder, can Gov. George W. Bush reposition himself as a moderate with such ease while his own reinventions draw ridicule?
One reason may be that there have been so many of them. But the dominant theory is that Mr. Gore simply does not connect with people. He is seen as too stiff, too eager to please, too caught up in policy gobbledygook to excite voters. Campaign aides prefer, for obvious reasons, another explanation. They believe that most of Mr. Gore's problems stem from the inherent difficulties of being vice president. If so, they say, Mr. Gore may not be able to make serious headway in reversing his fortunes until the Democratic convention, when he assumes command of the party, selects a vice president and delivers an acceptance speech.
It is a self-serving theory, but history provides some basis for it. In studying past election cycles, the Gore campaign has found that at this time of year, sitting vice presidents like George Bush in 1988, Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Richard Nixon in 1960 were all behind in the polls. So were vice presidents who had acceded to the White House, like Harry Truman in 1948 and Gerald Ford in 1976. The problem is that, of all these, only Truman and Mr. Bush went on to win in November.
The Gore campaign likes to think of the Bush campaign in 1988 as a model. Mr. Gore aims to raise doubts about the qualifications of his less experienced opponent the way the elder Mr. Bush did about Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts. But the more apt comparison may actually be 1960. Indeed, the author Richard Reeves, who is writing a book about Nixon, likens Mr. Gore's situation now to the one that Nixon found himself in against John Kennedy.
In that year, Mr. Reeves points out, Nixon was the experienced Washington hand with a great reputation as a debater and infighter, running against an opponent widely dismissed as a charming lightweight. There were also a lot of "new Nixons" foreshadowing the "new Gores" of today. Many political experts back then said that all Kennedy had to do was deliver a credible performance at the debates, and he would be deemed a winner. Some even contend to this day that Nixon won the debates on points, while Kennedy won on style, changing politics forever, possibly to Mr. Gore's disadvantage.
Nixon's narrow loss to Kennedy has been attributed to many things, including possible skulduggery in the voting in Chicago. But one factor may have also been Nixon's proud refusal to have President Dwight Eisenhower campaign for him except in the final rounds, when Nixon surged in the polls and almost caught up with Kennedy. Ike had a low opinion of Nixon, according to various memoirs, but still wanted him to win. He was said to have been puzzled and irritated by the Nixon campaign's attitude. "All we want out of Ike," a Nixon adviser told Theodore H. White during the campaign, "is for him to handle Khrushchev at the U.N. and not let things blow up there. That's all."
Mr. Gore's problem is that he may need President Clinton to help him, at least in the states where Mr. Clinton is most popular, without turning off voters in other states and making the vice president feel diminished just as he is trying to stand on his own. From Eisenhower to Lyndon Johnson to Ronald Reagan, there is a rich history of presidents having deeply mixed feelings about seeing their chosen vice presidents succeed them. Mr. Clinton apparently has no such ambivalence, although by some accounts he has been critical of Mr. Gore's stump style and his campaign team.
Whether or not the theory of the burden of the vice presidency is valid, Mr. Gore's reinventions show that he has yet to communicate -- and perhaps settle on -- a riveting narrative for himself. It must be said that Mr. Bush, while he is campaigning more smoothly right now, has not exactly pulled the sword from the stone yet either. We are still waiting for the moment when a successful candidate fashions a reason for running and grows as a result of a series of ordeals. From Ronald Reagan's "Shining City on the Hill" to Bill Clinton's "Man From Hope," truly successful politicians have a knack for sculpting a sense of destiny for themselves.
Heroic or not, the vice president has done well in those moments when he appeared to be facing long odds. His campaign in the primary had its excesses, but he came across as a tough combatant and drew strength from that image. The challenge facing Mr. Gore now may paradoxically help him reach that image again. For now, however, he faces not only a contest against Mr. Bush, but also, after a lifetime in public life, a battle to define himself in the eyes of the nation he wants to lead.
---
POLITICAL MEMO
House Democrats Have Money Edge on G.O.P.
New York Times
June 11, 2000
By ADAM CLYMER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/061100political-memo.html
WASHINGTON, June 10 -- Democrats have a financial advantage in the contest for control of the House of Representatives. That's right, Democrats.
Ever since Republicans took control of the House in 1994, they have out-raised the Democrats. Contributors pay for access and influence, and they would much rather get to members of the majority party, especially subcommittee and committee leaders. When the Republicans took over those posts in 1995, business and trade groups no longer needed to give to Democrats, and Republican fund-raising soared.
Another piece of the Republican advantage was a more effective fund-raising operation, maintaining a base of small donors who were reliable.
This year, neither factor seems to matter very much, as Democrats have greatly improved fund-raising efforts and contributors hedge their bets. They know it will take a net gain of only six Democratic seats to install Democrats in House positions of power, so they are giving to both sides.
This week when the Federal Election Commission released data for the 15 months that ended March 31, it showed that the House Democratic campaign committee had substantially more money in the bank than did its Republican counterpart.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reported $15,082,503 in soft money, the unregulated contributions from business, labor and rich people that these days are chiefly used for television advertisements attacking the other party's candidates. The National Republican Congressional Committee had $9,818,178.
When it came to hard money, the regulated contributions from individuals and political action committees, Democrats held a narrower advantage. They had $9,308,266 in the bank, while Republicans had $8,449,372.
Democrats held another advantage, although it is not so obvious, in the fund-raising of individual House candidates in crucial races.
The Federal Election Commission report said that the median receipts of Republicans in open seats -- those most likely to change hands because no one has the advantage of incumbency -- were $165,775. For Democrats, the figure was only $75,820.
But those figures were misleading. They include more than one candidate in places like Houston, where the contest for the seat of retiring Representative Bill Archer drew a big, well-heeled Republican field, six of whom raised more than $195,000, and one forlorn Democrat with no chance of being elected and a fund-raising total of $7,911.
When The New York Times examined 24 districts widely believed to be winnable by either party, comparing only one candidate from each party (the nominee or, if none had been chosen, the leading fund-raiser), the advantage was with the Democrats. Their median receipt was $655,849, compared with $539,893 for the Republicans. And the Democratic candidates reported median cash on hand of $433,892, while the Republicans showed $325,907.
When the focus was narrowed to the 11 open seats on that list of two dozen, the Democratic cash advantage grew. The Democrats' bank accounts held a median total of $395,911 to $237,067 for the Republicans'.
None of this means that the Democrats are going to take control of the House. But it means that one traditional Republican advantage is gone.
The spokesmen for the two campaign committees were oddly in sync in their comments. John Del Cecato of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said the numbers showed that "there will not be a single Democrat who loses a House race this year due to a lack of funds."
On the Republican side, Jim Wilkinson said that in "any race in America that matters, both sides, the Democrats and the Republicans, are going to have all the money they ever want."
At the end of a redistricting cycle of 10 years, only a small number of seats are really in play. The weak incumbents have already either lost or retired. So that means the parties -- and outside groups like labor and business -- can concentrate their attention, and their money.
As Mr. Wilkinson said, "We're going to have 20 to 30 mini-New Hampshires." In those contested House districts, he said, "Your phones are going to be ringing, your mailbox is going to be stuffed, your TV will have constant commercials, and strangers are going to be knocking on your door."
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Bush rolls out another George
USA Today
06/09/00- Updated 07:20 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/e98/e2021.htm
WASHINGTON - His name is George Bush, but he's never been president and he's not running either.
George P. Bush is the 24-year-old nephew of the Texas governor, and a key part of the campaign's plan to reach out to voters who are young and Hispanic.
He's both - and more than a little telegenic - and ready to debut in a campaign ad in New York City this weekend. Come August, he'll be youth chairman at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
''There's a Bush popping up everywhere,'' says the youngest of the George Bushes.
George Prescott Bush is spending the summer in Los Angeles, preparing for law school and making appearances for his uncle. On Sunday, he's marching in a Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York.
''I enjoy being able to reach out to these groups that typically are ignored by both parties,'' he said in an interview Friday.
The son of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and his Mexican-American wife, Columba, George P. speaks fluent Spanish, a skill he demonstrates in the TV ad that will air during parade coverage.
''I am a young Latino in the U.S. and very proud of my bloodline,'' he says in one of the ads. ''I have an uncle that is running for president because he believes in the same thing: opportunity for every American, for every Latino. His name? The same as mine - George Bush.''
He guesses viewers won't be expecting his face in a Bush for President commercial.
''They're going to be surprised by the fact that the Bush family is diverse,'' he said.
One version of the ad intercuts black-and-white images of the young man in a fast-paced, music-video style. The other shows him outdoors, smiling as he speaks to the camera.
The 30-second spots are only airing a handful of times and only in New York City. But chief campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes said they may return during the general election.
And the campaign sees him as a rising star. ''He's on his way to being a certain somebody in this race,'' says spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Hispanics tend to favor Democrats nationally, driven by Republican stances on immigration and affirmative action. But George W. Bush has avoided taking divisive positions and won half the Hispanic vote in his landslide re-election as governor. The GOP thinks it can make inroads nationally this year.
George P. Bush began working on his uncle's campaign during the New Hampshire primary, speaking at 38 schools and planting Bush for President signs across the state. He then worked in California, mostly speaking to college students.
That experience, he said, was generally - though not completely - positive.
''There's definitely some down moments,'' he said, pointing to one session with Mexican Americans.
''People after the speech came and called me a racist. They called my father and my uncle a racist. They believed their policies were detrimental to Latinos,'' he said. ''I tried to explain their positions.''
In reaching out to young people, Bush serves as a GOP counterpoint to Karenna Gore Schiff, the vice president's daughter, who heads the Gore campaign's youth effort. While Bush's role is not as prominent as hers, both campaigns use these young and good-looking relatives as representatives of the next generation.
At the Republican convention, Bush isn't sure just what he'll be doing.
''Apparently, I've just been anointed youth chairman,'' he said. ''It seems like an exciting idea.''
This won't be his first time in the spotlight. In 1988, his grandfather, Vice President George Bush, created a minor stir when he lovingly introduced George P., then 12, and his siblings to President Reagan as ''the little brown ones.''
All grown up, this fall he's headed to the University of Texas for law school. But he says he hopes to find time to continue working on the campaign.
Naturally, he's considered going into politics himself, but this year's upclose experience has left him unsure. ''It's really hard to say whether it's for me or not,'' he said.
After the convention, he hopes to make weekend campaign trips to important states with large Latino populations - New Mexico, Arizona and California.
''I'd be doing grass-roots stuff, speaking to the troops, to the volunteers that drive campaigns,'' he said. ''Graduating in the top 2% doesn't seem like a likelihood now.''
---
Poll: Most back Bush retirement proposal
USA Today
06/08/00- Updated 11:25 PM ET
By Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/e98/e2013.htm
WASHINGTON - Most Americans support George W. Bush's proposal to let workers invest part of their Social Security taxes in stocks and bonds, according to a USA TODAY/ CNN/Gallup Poll.
Despite Vice President Gore's characterization of the plan as "risky," 59% of 1,059 adults polled Tuesday and Wednesday favored it. Margin of error was +/-3 percentage points.
"People should be allowed to invest their own money. The money you get from Social Security now is inadequate," says Loretta Gonzalez, 51, a Democrat in Moreno Valley, Calif.
Strongest support comes from people younger than 50. Those closer to retirement are wary of changing the system. Two of three people 65 or older oppose it. "Look at how the stock market fluctuates. With Social Security, you have automatic savings," says Helen Benda, 72, a retiree in Delray Beach, Fla.
Gore would preserve the system and shore it up with money from the federal budget surplus. When asked which was the greater risk to Social Security, leaving the system as is or allowing personal investments, 51% said standing pat is more dangerous. Support for change cuts across gender, party, racial, income and education lines. "I don't think the Democrats understand how potent this issue is with younger and independent voters," says political scientist Mark Rozell at Catholic University in Washington.
"This puts Gore in an awkward position," says political scientist Herb Asher at Ohio State University. " How do you scare people about the Bush Social Security plan without scaring them about the economy? The economy and prosperity are his best issues."
Meanwhile, the race between Republican Bush and Democrat Gore continues to be a tossup. A two-way matchup gives Bush 48% of likely voters to Gore's 44%, which is within that question's +/-5 percentage points margin of error. Regardless of whom they support, 55% of Americans say they believe Bush ultimately will win. "A lot people I know just aren't that impressed with Gore," says Justin Hahn, 27, a computer consultant in Durham, N.C., who leans toward Gore.
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G.O.P. Counterattacks Quickly After Democrats' TV Ad
New York Times
June 11, 2000
By PETER MARKS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/061100wh-repubs.1v.ram.html
Responding rapidly to a 15-state advertising campaign by the Democrats, the Republican Party yesterday unveiled its first national television commercial, a spot detailing Gov. George W. Bush's proposals for overhauling Social Security. It will begin running tomorrow in 17 states, from New England to the Pacific Northwest.
The swiftness with which the Republican National Committee is taking to the airwaves is a marked departure from four years ago, when the Democratic Party began running issue advertisements on behalf of President Clinton weeks before the cash-strapped Republicans could start commercials for their presidential candidate, Bob Dole.
Republicans and Democrats say this first volley of spots establishes the pace for a highly expensive parry-and-thrust on the air that is likely to continue virtually uninterrupted until Election Day.
The Republican commercial is being paid for with a mixture of hard money, raised under federal limits, and soft money, the unrestricted contributions made to political parties by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals. The Democrats' spot, which went up on Thursday to advertise Vice President Al Gore's support for expanding Medicare benefits to cover prescription drugs, is being paid for in the same manner.
The widespread use of soft money in political advertising itself became an issue in recent weeks, as Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore tried to portray each other as unwilling to stop employing the money in their campaigns.
The Democrats have estimated that their initial advertising campaign, to run until the conventions, will cost $25 million or more.
Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said yesterday that his party's initial commercial would run 7 to 10 days and cost more than $2 million.
"We had no intention of starting to run issue ads until Gore broke his pledge," Mr. Nicholson said. "They pledged not to run issue ads. But they broke that pledge because their campaign is faltering. They're in a desperate situation."
Mr. Gore has said he made no such pledge, but had told Republican leaders that he would not run issue spots paid for with soft money if the Republicans promised not to do so. He said the Republicans declined to take up his challenge.
Unlike the Democrats' half-minute spot, the Republican commercial runs 60 seconds, and it takes on a far riskier and more complicated issue. It is one that Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore have sparred over in recent weeks: how to ensure the federal retirement-benefits system does not go bankrupt as vast numbers of aging baby boomers move ever closer to eligibility for retirement checks.
In the commercial, produced by Alex Castellanos, a media consultant, an announcer explains Mr. Bush's approach: "The Bush plan guarantees everyone at or near retirement every dollar of their benefits. You paid into it, it's your money and it will be there for you. And the Bush plan gives younger workers a choice to invest a small part of their Social Security in sound investments they control, for higher returns."
That last declaration derives from a speech on May 15 by Mr. Bush, in which he proposed a partial privatization of Social Security that would fundamentally change the system by allowing workers to invest some of their payroll taxes on their own.
Mr. Gore denounced the proposal as dangerous, contending that taxpayers would be vulnerable to losing their retirement savings in fraudulent and foolhardy investments.
Some Republican strategists close to Mr. Bush acknowledged the Republican National Committee spot addressed a much more politically treacherous issue than the one the Democrats chose for their first commercial for Mr. Gore. That, they said, was part of the point.
"It's as much a spot about leadership as it is about Social Security," asserted a Bush adviser.
"What people like most is someone who seems to have the courage to do what's right."
Democratic officials, however, said they thought there was a lot in the spot that would work against Mr. Bush. It begins, they point out, with the announcer noting that "our nation is at peace and more prosperous than ever." Joe Andrew, national chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said, "I'm going to be quoting the first sentence of the ad between now and the election." He added that Democrats would assert that the Bush plan could force cuts in retirement benefits and lead to an increase in the retirement age.
The Republicans are going to run the spot in the 15 states in which the Democrats' commercial is being broadcast.
Among the other states where the commercials will run are several electoral vote-rich states that some strategists believe may determine the winner of the general election, including Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The other states where the parties' commercials will be running are Georgia, Florida, Washington, Oregon, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, Missouri and Wisconsin and Maryland.
The Republicans added Arkansas and Maine.
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A Gift to the Wealthiest
New York Times
June 11, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/editorial/11sun2.html
Seldom have so many voted for a gargantuan tax cut for so few. The House voted overwhelmingly Friday, 279 to 136, to repeal the federal estate tax -- a tax so focused on the rich that it hits only about 2 percent of all estates. Sponsors claimed to be acting on behalf of families who inherit a family farm or business only to find that they are forced to sell the property to pay the "death tax." But among the estates that are now subject to taxation, only about 3 percent are farms or family businesses, and there are better ways to get relief to them.
Estate taxes are not imposed on inheritances under $675,000, and that exemption will rise to $1 million by 2006, or $2 million for couples with some planning. The very rich pay almost all of the tax. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group, about half of the tax is paid by the weathiest one-thousandth of the people who die. The code already provides a variety of special allowances for family farms and businesses, including an exemption of $1.3 million.
Abolishing the estate tax would have severe consequences. When fully phased in, the bill would cost about $50 billion a year. Repeal would also threaten the nation's finest universities and museums. Wealthy families no longer facing estate taxes might well decide to leave more money to their families, and less to charity.
The Democrats offered a more-than-reasonable alternative. Their plan would cut the estate tax rates by 20 percent, a gesture to the political pressures, and raise the exclusion for couples owning family farms and businesses to $4 million to better help the supposed targets of this legislation. Yet the House swatted the alternative aside, demonstrating that a large majority of members were less concerned with rescuing family farms and businesses than with enriching their wealthiest supporters.
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