Tuesday, March 3, 1987
Page 2
Daily Nebraskan
4
By The Associated Press
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Baker: Tower commission damaged Reagan, Gates' support
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WASHINGTON' Nevvlv installed White House
Chief of Staff Howard Baker insisted Monday
that President Reagan was not "a hands-off"
leader or "an AWOL president" but acknowl
edged he was damaged by the tough criticism of
the Tower commission.
At a news conference his first day on the job,
Baker announced that Reagan had approved a
request by the embattled Robert Gates to with
draw his nomination to head the CIA.
With Gates' nomination losing support in the
Senate, Reagan said that confirmation healings
now "would not be in the interest of the CIA or of
the nation." There was no immediate
announcement of a new nominee, but Baker said
it was "an urgent item on the president's
Tve never seen Ronald
Reagan more energetic,
more engaged. He's
never been better.'
Baker
agenda.
In a letter to Reagan, made public by Baker,
Gates told the president "it is apparent that
there is strong sentiment in the Senate" to with
hold approval of his nomination pending com
pletion of the investigation into the Iran-Contra
affair.
Reagan asked Gates to stay on the CIA in his
former job as deputy director, the spy agency's
No. 2 job.
Led by Baker, the White House went to
extraordinary lengths to counter the portrayal of
Reagan in the Tower commission report, and by
its members, as a detached leader who delegates
too much authority to his staff and can't stay on
top of details.
"I've never seen Ronald Reagan more oner.
getic, more engaged," Baker said. 'He's never
been better."
To answer the findings of the Tower panel,
Reagan will deliver a nat ionally broadcast speech
from the Oval Office at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Baker,
saying he had reviewed drafts of the speech,
said, "I think it's a marvelous speech and I think
it will have a profound effect."
However, Baker said that during the Iran
Contra affair, "there were many, many things
that the president did not know and that under
better circumstances, perhaps, he should have
known. That is for the president to say."
Baker called the publication of the Tower
board's report "a turning point."
Arms control negotiators discuss Soviet proposal;
Soviet, American officials agree to extend talks
GKNKVA American and Soviet arms control nego
tiators met in special session Monday, and the Soviets
presented Mikhail S. Gorbachev's new proposal to elim
inate medium-range missiles in Kurope.
Searching for a breakthrough in the negotiations, the
two sides agreed to extend the talks indefinitely. I'.S.
officials in Washington said the American side would
respond by presenting a craft treaty to remove intermediate-range
missiles now aimed at Soviet and Euro
pean targets.
Soviet officials said Gorbachev made his new offer on
Saturday in an attempt to break the Geneva deadlock.
The proposal dropped a Soviet demand that the United
Slates restrict its "Star Wars" program before an arms
control package could be agreed on.
Kurope an governments generally reacted favorably to
the Soviet initiative but cautioned that they would want
to examine it closely before moving toward banning
Soviet SS-20 missiles and NATO's C.S.-made Pershing 2
and cruise missile that are now being deployed.
The missiles that would be scrapped under an agree
ment include 310 I'.S.-made cruise and Pershing 2 mis
siles already deployed in western Kurope. In all, 572 are
to be deployed.
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On the Soviet side, Western officials estimate that 44 1
medium-range SS-20s have been deployed in the Soviet
I'nion. Gen. Sergei FrAkhromeyev, Soviet chief of staff,
said on Monday that 243 of the SS-20 missiles were
aimed at Kurope.
The Soviet proposal would eliminate medium-range
missiles based in Europe over the next five years, with
the Soviet Union keeping 1 00 missiles on its Asian
territory and the United States maintaining 100 on its
territory.
In Washington, the White House welcomed the Soviet
move.
IRS offers revised
tax withholding form
WASHINGTON The Internal Rev
enue Service, apologizing for its con
fusing four-page tax-withholding form,
offered a slimmed-down version Mon
day that will allow half of all taxpayers
to complete the chore in 1 5 minutes.
"The Internal Revenue Service has
heard the reactions to the long form
from members of Congress, from the
media and from individual taxpayers,"
IRS Commissioner Lawrence B. Gibbs
told a news conference. "We have not
ignored what we have heard."
What the agency heard was that the
four-page W-4 released last November
was incomprehensible. The IRS de
fended the form as meeting Congress'
requirement for a W-4 that allowed
taxpayers to accurately match their
withholding with actual tax liability.
If the White House Office of Man
agement and Budget goes along, the
W-4A will be available to taxpayers in
mid-April, Gibbs said.
Gibbs estimated that about half the
nation's wage-earners will be able to
calculate their withholding by using
only the front page of the W-4A: six
short paragraphs of instructions, a
seven-line worksheet and the seven
line form itself, which is given to the
employer.
But the W-4A is less precise than the
long form. For example, it instructs
taxpayers to use a round figure of
$2,000 in calculating their withholding
allowances, even though each allowance
is worth only $1,900 this year.
Perhaps more significant, the short
form eliminates the intimidating, full
page, 24-column table of figures used
by two-earner couples and two-job
workers in filing the long version.
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1987 DAILY NEBRASKAN
Weather Service mistaken;
reports tornado destroyed town
CHICAGO - A National Weather
Service bulletin that erroneously said
the city of Rockford had been demol
ished by a tornado was sent to hundreds
of Midwest radio and televison stations
Monday and read on the air by some
announcers.
One broadcaster whose station used
the bulletin said "that's very upsetting
to find out you may have panicked
thousands of people needlessly."
The bulletin, sent on the weather
service's wire at 4:").') a.m., said:
"At 4:35 a.m. 1ST a tornado hit the
Rockford, 111., weather office. This storm
was moving southeast at 50 mph. This
is a dangerous storm. Take cover
immediately.
"The entire town of Rockford has
been demolished. If you are in the path
of this tornado, you should go to a
basement shelter if avaiIableJ,..Aban
don cars and mobile homes."
Five minutes later, a disclaimer was
sent explaining that the bulletin was
transmitted by mistake, said meteorol
ogist Steve Kahn at the service's Chi
cago office.
The bulletin was part of a test being
conducted to prepare for the upcoming
tornado season, and was designed only
for weather service personnel, Kahn
said.
He blamed a change in computer
software at the service's Chicago office
for letting the bulletin get out.
"It went out all over the weather
wire, probably throughout much of the
Midwest," he said. "We had a lot of
calls. They were all asking, 'This is a
test, isn't it?' "
Rockford, 86 miles northwest of Chi
cago, has a population of about 140,000.
Kahn said a new check in the system
now codes all tests to say 'test' and will
prevent such mistakes from happening
again.
In Brief
Reagan withdraws Gates' CIA nomination
WASHINGTON President Reagan on Monday withdrew his nomina
tion of acting U A Director Robert M. Gates to head the spy agency, saying
confirmation hearings at this time "would not be in the interest of the CIA
or of the nation."
In a statement read to reporters by his new chief of staff, Howard H.
Baker Jr., Reagan said he withdrew the nomination at Gates' request.
Baker also read to reporters a letter from Gates to the president, saying,
"It is apparent that there is strong sentiment in the Senate to await
completion, at minimum, of the work of the Senate Select Committee on
Iran before acting on my nomination."
"I believe a prolonged period of uncertainty would be harmful to the
Central Intelligence Agency, the intelligence community and potentially
to our national security," he said.
Orr signs mail-order sales tax bill
LINCOLN Saying that an important message was involved, Gov. Kay
Orr has signed a bill intended to extend the state sales tax to mail order
purchases.
Orr said she signed LB304, sponsored by Sen. Elroy Hefner of Coleridge.
Opponents of the measure, led by Sen. Loran Schmit of Bellwood, have
argued that the measure is unenforceable, constitutionally suspect and
could cost more than it will raise to enforce.
Orr addressed those arguments:
"In addition to the impact upon Nebraska, the signing of this bill sends
a message nationally to support the federal legislation. . . which autho
rizes state sales tax collections on interstate sales," she said in a
prepared statement.
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