P TA7’ C F11 (XPCf Associated Press
JL vJ VV & M-J IciV^ V Edited by Diana Johnson
Tower nomination refused on close vote
WASHINGTON - The Senate on
Thursday rejected the nomination of
John Tower as defense secretary, 53
47, handing President George Bush a
major defeat in his first high-stakes
showdown with the Democradio
controlled Congress.
The White House said Bush would
act swiftly to submit a replacement
nomination to the Senate.
Tower was scuttled by concerns
about his drinking habits coupled
with senatorial unhappiness that he
had ieft his government post as arms
negotiator and quickly began earning
hundreds of thousands of dollars as a
defense industry consultant
The vote was the culmination of a
tumultuous six-day Senate debate
and closely followed party lines.
Howell Heflin of Alabama, Lloyd
Bentsen of Texas and Christopher
Dodd of Connecticut were the only
TF- « > <•
Democrats to support the nomina
tion. One Republican - Nancy Kasse
baum of Kansas - voted against.
Tower, in a statement he delivered
at the Pentagon moments after the
vote, said, “I will be recorded as the
first Cabinet nominee in the history
of the republic to be rejected in the
first 90 days of a presidency and per
haps be harshly judged.
“But I depart from this place at
peace with myself, knowing that I
have given a full measure of devotion
to my country.”
Tower said no other public figure
“has been subjected to such a far
reaching and thorough investigation
nor had his human foibles bared to
such intensive and demeaning public
scrutiny.”
“And yet, there is no finding that
I have ever breached established le
gal and ethical standards nor been
derelict in my duty,” he said.
The Senate rendered its verdict in
an atmosphere of unusual formality.
Vice President Dan Quayle presided
over the session, practically all sena
tors remained in their chairs during
the roll call and the gallery was
packed with spectators.
‘ ‘We ought to hang our heads after
what we’ve done to this good man,”
Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole
of Kansas said in a final defiant
speech of support before the roll was
called.
‘‘America has lost a good public
servant. The president has won be
cause he stood by his man.”
Majority Leader George Mitchell
summed up for the opponents, saying
that Tower’s experience and compe
tence on defense issues weren’t at
issue. But ‘‘serious problems exist”
with conflict of interest and “charac
« « *
ter integrity, he said.
He said, “I emphasize my
strongly held belief that this should
not be interpreted as a vote to harm
the president,” but acknowledged
that others saw it that way.
The rejection of Tower marked
only the ninth time in history that the
Senate has turned down a president’s
Cabinet nominee, and the first such
decision since 1959 when the Senate
voted against confirming President
Eisenhower’s nominee for secretary
of commerce, Lewis L. Strauss.
Bush dodged reporters’ questions
as he departed for a trip to New York,
but his press secretary, Marlin
Fitzwatcr, said, “If necessary, we’ll
come up with a (new) candidate very
rapidly.”
Names most frequently men
tioned in White House speculation as
a replacement candidate included
^JOhR Warner, R-Va., the ranking
GOP member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee and a former
secretary of the Navy; former De
fense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
former Rep. Jack Edwards, R-Ala ’
Brent Scowcroft, the national sc
cunty adviser, also was mentioned
but told reporters ‘ ‘no, ” he was not in
line for the post.
The debate drew to an end with the
last handful of uncommitted senators
declaring their intentions.
Kasscbaum was the only Republi
can to break ranks with her party She
cited Tower’s consulting work for
defense contractors shortly after he
served as an arms control negotiator
saying it raised “very serious con
cerns” about his judgment and
“sensitivity to those major issues of
conflict of inerest, the role of consult
ants and the revolving door.”
Jew s strike protests emigration policy
MOSCOW — Dozens of Jewish
women across the Soviet Union,
some joined by their children,
launched a three-day hunger strike
Wednesday to protest what they say
are arbitrary Kremlin policies barring
their emigration.
Inside a small, dark apartment in a
pre-fabricated Moscow high-rise, 18
women and four of their children
gathered to begin the third annual
hunger strike organized by a group
called Jewish Women Against Re
fusal.
The date they chose for the begin
ning of their three-day fast was sym
bolic: March 8 is International
r" ■■■ --1
Women’s Day in the Soviet Union, a
national holiday.
The hunger strikers, who were
packed into a modest living room,
said they feared the international
popularity of President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev’s reforms, known as
“perestroika,” diverts attention
from their plight.
“We are very afraid now because
the Soviet Union does everything
possible to attract attention to per
estroika, and many people across the
world are deceived,” said Judith
Lurie of Moscow.
“It’s true that many changes have
taken place in this country - but it’s
far from being a law-governed
state,” said Lurie, 46, who has been
refused an exit visa for 10 years.
Lurie’s family was given exit vi
sas in 1979, but the authoritcs re
voked them on the grounds of state
secrecy because her husband worked
in a classified job as an organic chem
istry researcher for two years in the
1960s, she said.
At least 48 women and several
children are taking part in the hunger
strike in nine cities, including Lenin
grad, Kiev, Minsk, Riga and Irkutsk,
said Inna Ioffe, whose apartment was
one of two gathering spots in Moscow
for the hunger strikers.
Central Latinos use
smugglers to sneak
across U.S. border
M/\ 1 AMUKUo, Mexico —
Central Americans fleeing their
war-torn homelands have begun
using smugglers to take them deep
into the United States to evade
tighter rules and heavier border
patrols, officials said Wednesday.
Other refugees, out of money
for bribes and payments, say they
can only wait and hope the U.S.
crackdown that began Feb. 21 will
case.
“There’s been a large increase
in smuggling people, v said Juan
A. Garcia, assistant chief of the
U.S. Border Patrol in McAllen,
Texas. “They’ve resorted to going
through smugglers to see if they’re
able to get them farther into the
United Stales.”
David Trevino, a supervisor of
the Border Patrol’s intelligence
unit, said there are 1300 to 2,000
Central Americans on the Mexican
side of the border waiting to cross,
up from 200 to 300 before the new
policy went into effect
Until Feb. 21, refugees could
enter the United States at
Brownsville, Texas, the nearest
U.S. point to Central America.
Most applied for political asylum
and lived in the United Stales until
their status was determined.
But the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service s id most
refugees have experienced eco
nomic hardship and need not fear
political persecution. In an effort
to stem the flow, the INS began
interviewing refugees as soon as
they crossed the border.
in uie nrsi wees, tne agency
granted only 16of370petitions for
asylum, and detained the others
pending deportation proceedings.
The result was a backup in this
town just south of Brownsville on
the Rto Grande, as some Central
Americans fled the threat of deten
tion in the United States and others
searched for a new, and illegal,
way across the border.
Trevino said smuggling cases
delected in die area have doubled
from four to eight a day. Most of
the refugees are trying to reach
Houston, from which they can
travel to other parts of the United
States.
“A lot them me transported tc
just before a checkpoint and
dropcedofT. They walk around the
checkpoint and are picked up on
the other side,** Garcia said. The
checkpoints me surrounded by
farmland, and Garcia said it’s
impossible to monitor all the river
crossings.
Meanwhile, many Central
Americans said that while cross
ing the river has become tougher,
paying smugglers to take them to
other crossing points or further
into the United Slates is not an
option.
“We came and we’ve found
that we can’t get in, that there are
new laws and now we’re trapped
here without money and we can’t
cross,’’ said Margarita Saavedra,
45, a Nicaraguan at the Casa Juan
Diego, a Roman Catholic-run
shelter for the poor.
Soviet sent
home, tried
to tell secrets
WASHINGTON - A Soviet
military attache was ordered
home Thursday by the State
Department after being caught
receiving classified documents
from an American employee of a
U.S. firm with government con
tracts, a spokesman said.
Ll Col. Yuriy Nikolayevich
Pakhtusov, who arrived here last
June, received documents deal
ing with how the U.S. govern
ment protects classified and other
sensitive information in com
puter systems, State Department
press officer Dennis Harter said.
The FBI said Pakhtusov was
arrested Wednesday. It was not
disclosed how long he is being
given to leave the United Stales.
Harter said the Soviet Em
bassy was informed that
Pakhtusov was being expelled for
“engaging in activities incom
patible with his diplomatic
status."
Carbide seeks protection
new DELHI, India - Victims of
the Bhopal gas disaster rampaged
through Union Carbide Corp. offices
Wednesday, and a human chain sur
rounded die building screaming:
“Killer Carbide, quit India!”
Hundreds of other protesting vic
tims squatted outside the Supreme
Court, which Wednesday began
hearing a petition challenging the
government’s right to setde on com
pensation for all victims of the
world’s worst industrial accident.
‘Killer Carbide,
quit India!’
—protestors
About 570,000 people say they
are entitled to compensation for the
Dec. 3, 1984 gas leak at a Union
Carbide pesticide plant in the central
town of Bhopal that killed at least
3,400 people and injured 20,000.
Today, people still are dying from
effects of the leak.
About a dozen people broke away
from the protest outside the down
town New Delhi offices of the
Danbury, Conn.-based multina
tional Wednesday, and stormed into
the reception area.
They broke windows, smashed
furniture and scrawled slogans on
the walls, said company spokesman
Subramanium Kumaraswamy.
About 140 demonstrators who
formed a human chain around the
building yelled, “We Will Not Al
low UCC To Get Away With Mur
der!”
Immediately, the company sought
police protection.
“We have posted policemen all
over,” a police official said on condi
tion of anonymity. “What happened
will not happen now.”
Protestors want the Supreme Court
to scrap a $470 million settlement
agreed to by the government Feb. 14
as “full and final” compensation for
all sufferers from the disaster.
“I am a gas victim,” said a yellow
paper badge on the sari of a woman
among 800 demonstrators who sat
cross-legged in the parking lot of the
Supreme Court.
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