page 2
daily nebraskan
thursday, november 16, 1978
No evidence of a Ray payoff in King murder House
Washington-House investigators said
Wednesday if James Earl Ray was part of
a conspiracy to assassinate Martin Luther
King Jr., there is no evidence he received a
payoff.
House assassinations committee investi
gators said a detailed investigation of Ray's
finances concluded he may have paid for
his escape to Europe after King's assassina
tion with money from a $27,000 bank
robbery.
Chief counsel G. Robert Blakey said the
investigation found no evidence of a payoff
to Ray in the thousands of dollars.
But Blakey added, "The fact is, a lot of
trigger men carry out their contract and
never get paid for it.
The committee said it had found signif
icant evidence, but no proof, that Ray and
at least one of this brothers robbed a bank
in their hometown of Alton, 111., July 13,
1967, less than a year before King's
murder.
The committee spent all day Tuesday in
an effort to discredit a claim by Mark
Lane, Ray's attorney, that Memphis au
thorities committed a woman, Grace
Walden to a mental hospital to suppress her
testimony that Ray was not the assassin.
The committee released records and
affidavits from Memphis police saying Mrs.
Walden told them shortly after the assas
sination she had seen nothing.
At the end of the day, Lane, who is now
Mrs. Walden 's co-guardian, accused the
committee of trying to destroy her.
"She is a decent human being whom
you have sought to destroy for your own
purposes," Lane said from the witness
table. "You, all of you, make me ill."
Lane then stalked out of the hearing
room.
More wine, please
Washington-Americans are drinking
more wine that ever an average of seven
quarts per person per year, a new Agricul
ture Department survey shows.
The figures for 1976, the latest year for
which statistics are available, showed that
average wine drinking doubled from the
early 1960s when the consumption was
less than four quarts of orange juice and
132 quarts of milk a year on the average.
A soon-to-be-published report on wine
drinking based on research by economists
Raymond Folwell and John Baritelle shows
that California continues to dominate Am
erican wine production, accounting for 80
percent of the U.S. wine flow.
The new issue of the department's Farm
Index magazine notes several observations
from the economists' wide-ranging study,
which was based on a scientifically selected
sample of 7,000 households around the
country.
Among those observations:
-More than 30 percent of the popu
lation doesn't drink wine. Most abstain
ers are in the South.
-Almost four out of 10 non-drinkers
said they abstain for religious or personal
reasons. But the majority "indicated they
didn't know much about wine and there
fore were reluctant to try it."
-Regular drinkers with higher incomes,
better education and smaller families
prefer table and sparkling wines.
-More than half of all wine is purchased
at supermarkts, 39 percent at li
quor stores and 4 percent at drugstores.
Disabled boy runs
Key Biscayne, Fla.-Timmy limped in
and announced to his mother: "They're
having a mini-marathon, six and two-tenths
miles. I'm going to enter."
Martha Brattain blanched. God had
played it down the middle with her
Timmy. Eleven years ago he was born with
a 50,000-watt glow in his heart-and
cerebral palsy.
"Timmy, you can barely run about the
block," she said gently. "How can you ex
pect to race more than six miles?"
Timmy grinned and said he didn't know
but he was going to try.
She thought he would forget the Key
Biscayne mini-marathon. Then, one Sun
day last month, he shouted: "Mom, hurry!
The race starts in a few minutes."
They barely made it. Seven hundred
runners were at the starting line on Key
Biscavne. Timmv took a look at the mob
and said, "I better get to the end of the
line or they might run over me."
Mrs. Brattain watched the runners start
then went back to their home a few blocks
away. She was sure Timmy would stop the
first time by the house.
So were others who had seen him drag
his unsynchronized right leg through soccer
and baseball games, grinning, forever grin
ning, every heaving half-stride.
"I waited in the house," she said, "but
he didn't come back in."
Mrs. Brattain bicycled across the island
asking if anyone had seen Timmy. They
had. "He's still going," they said.
Because of the race, police had shut off
traffic into Cape Florida, the state park at
the tip of Key Biscayne. Timmy entered
Cape Florida more than an hour behind the
other runners, who had already threaded
their way through and out of the park.
Officers saw him and held up motorists. No
car would go inside until Timmy came cut.
They waited. And waited. Timmy
emerged, gasping and flushed, nearly two
hours behind the pack. His mother wanted
to ride the rest of the way behind him on
her bike. But Timmy sent a message:
"Tell Mom to stay way behind me."
Out of the park and down the finishing
stretch came Timmy. He was half-running,
half-hopping, all on his better left leg.
An old man on a lawn hailed Mrs. Brat
tain: "Was that your kid that just went
by?"
She nodded.
"That. . .is. . .the. . .damndest. . .thing
. . .1. . .ever. . .saw," the old man said. The
moisture on his cheeks was not sweat.
Jerome White won the mini-marathon in
32 minutes 23 seconds. Timmy crossed the
line in two hours six minutes.
His mother tried to be casual. "Are you
all right?" she asked.
Timmy grinned. He said he was "a little
tired, that's all."
Drug deaths up
Bonn, West Germany-U.S. military
commanders expect an increase in the
number of drug deaths among American
troops in Europe this year.
Rex Gribble, a press spokesman for the
U.S. Army headquarters in Heidelberg, said
25 of the 185,000 Gls stationed in Ger
many and one dependent had died from
drugs by midyear, compared with 26 sol
diers and five dependents and civilian em
ployees for all of 1977.
U.S. investigators claim there has been
an increase in hard-drug traffic cross the
Continent. One investigator said 265
pounds of heroin have been seized in
Western Europe this year.
The increase in the drug supply indi
cates that dealers have developed new
sources of supply. Heroin from Pakistan,
Iran and Afghanistan has found its way in
increasing amounts to Berlin, where 5,000
U.S. troops are stationed, sources say.
Despite financial hardships caused by
the decline of the dollar, Gl addicts
manage to pay $85 for a gram of high
quality heroin, which yields 20 shots.
Forty-five military police investigators
have been assigned to drug work full-time.
Army headquarters in Heidelberg has re
quested that 30 more be sent to West
Germany.
So says toMuSga,
"MCE. TCV DAVID NOW I THAT WE'RE
SERVICE CONNECTED. VA WOULD PJW
COMPENSATION FOB OlSA&IUttES.-
) King Feature Syndicat Inc
Contact naar.it VA office
(check your prions book) or
a local veterans group.
KING OF BEERS ANHEUSER-BUSCH. INC ST LOUIS
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