News Digest
A ^ ^ W * *** m-‘w -fyV Edited by Eric Pfanner
' Baker meets with Israeli prime minister
JERUSALEM — Secretary of State James
Baker met with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir on Monday amid tensions over Presi
dent Bush’s refusal to expedite U.S. loan guar
antees to house Israel’s flood of Soviet immi
grants.
Baker, seeking to firm up Israel’s support
for a Middle East peace conference, spoke with
Shamir for about 3 1/2 hours, then departed
Support sought for peace conference
without comment for a meeting with three
Palestinians from occupied territories. A sec
ond session with Shamir was scheduled for
today.
Before arriving in Israel, Baker acknowl:
edged the complications in the U.S.-Israeli
relationship because of the dispute over the
timing of the proposed 3>1U billion m nousing
loan guarantees.
Bush stood firmly behind his call last week
for a 120-day delay in the housing legislation,
on the grounds that rushing the package through
now could disrupt the peace process. Arabs
fear that the loans would be used to construct
housing in tne israeu-occupiea Aran territo
ries.
Bush said Monday he had no personal quar
rel with Israeli leaders, and “The less debate we
have now on these contentious issues, the bel
ter.”
“What I’m proposing is in the best interest
of peace,” Bush said of his insistence that the
loan program be held in abeyance.
Satellite Operations
AP
Shuttle
ducks
debris
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
— The Discovery early Mon
day dodged a chunk of a Soviet
rocket, the first such near miss
of the shuttle program, before
the crew assembled a giant
“Erector Set” as practice for the
proposed space station.
The five astronauts should
not have to worry about any
more such encounters during the
mission, NASA said.
The shuttle and the debris—
about the size of a van—passed
within about 10 miles of each
other minutes after midnight.
It was the first time in the 10
year-old shuttle program that
astronauts had to move their
ship to avoid orbiting debris. '
“I think we scored a space
first,” Mission Control’s Jan
Davis told the crew before they
went to sleep for the day. “Good
work on everybody’s part.”
The astronauts have been
working at night and sleeping
during the day since they reached
orbit Thursday, arranging their
schedule around the midnight
release of an atmospheric ob
servation satellite.
Before going to sleep, the
astronauts assembled a struc
ture in the cargo bay for an
experiment gauging the effec
tiveness of components for the
space station. The structure was
shaken electronically to see how
it withstands vibration in micro
gravity.
Iran-contra charges
against North dropped
WASHINGTON — A federal judge
dismissed all charges against Oliver
North, the central figure in the Iran
contra affair, Monday after the spe
cial prosecutor gave up trying to rein
state North’s felony convictions.
An exultant North declared him
self “totally exonerated. ... I’ve had
my last hearing forever, I hope.”
North hugged his attorney, family
and friends in the courtroom after
U.S. District Court Judge Gerhard
Gesell dismissed the charges.
Independent counsel Lawrence
Walsh said he had decided it was
unlikely he could win reinstatement
of North’s three convictions — for
destroying documents, accepting an
illegal gratuity and aiding in obstruc
tion of Congress — which were set
aside by a federal appeals court in
July 1990.
The Appeals court had ordered
Gesell to determine whether testi
mony at North’s trial was tainted by
use of the defendant’s own forced
testimony before Congress, given under
immunity in 1987. Last week former
National Security Adviser Robert
McFarlane, North’s While House boss
for a time during the Reagan admini
stration, dealt a heavy blow to the
prosecution by saying in court that his
testimony had been influenced by
North’s statements to Congress.
North was a little-known Marine
colonel at the lime of the main events
of the Iran-contra affair. It involved
the resupply at his direction of the
Nicaraguan rebels while such aid was
illegal and the diversion to the con
Brian Shelhto/DN
tras of money from the sale of U.S.
arms to Iran.
Disclosure of the basic facts in late
1986 was the worst blow to the Re
agan administration during its eight
years.
President Bush, who has referred
to North as a hero for his Vietnam
exploits, called Monday’s action “a
good decision.”
‘‘It sounds like the system worked
very well,” Bush said.
However, Walsh said the dismissal
should be taken as “a very serious
warning that immunity is not to be
granted lightly.”
‘‘I urged them (Congress) not to
grant immunity” when North was
called to testify in 1987, Walsh said.
House Speaker Thomas Foley, D
Wash., said he did not believe Con
gress erred in deciding to hold its own
Iran-contra inquiry.
Gates says
he judged
wrong
WASHINGTON — Robert
Gates said Monday at the open
ing of confirmation hearings on
his nomination as CIA director
that he made “misjudgments”
during the Iran-Contra affair.
The opening day of the hear
ings was dominated by Iran
contra, the five-year-old affair
that unfolded while Gates was
No. 2 at the CIA. Now a na
tional security aide at the White
House, Gates was nominated last
July by President Bush to suc
ceed William Webster at the
CIA helm.
Under lengthy questioning,
Gates repeatedly denied that he
knew of the diversion to the
Nicaraguan contras of profits
from the sale of U.S. arms to
Iran before speculation on such
dealing was brought to his at
tention on Oct. 1,1986.
The 47-year-old analyst had
made the same contention dur
ing hearings on his previous
nomination to the top CIA post
by President Reagan in 1987.
Sweden’s minister resigns
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Prime
Minister Ingvar Carlsson resigned
Monday after his Social Democratic
Party’s resounding defeat in parlia
mentary elections, but the conserva
tive victors were having trouble form
ing a new government.
Opposition parties on the right of
the political spectrum promised lax
cuts, less bureaucracy and less spend
ing— thereby winning broad support
from voters wearied by a lax burden
of 60 percent for the average worker.
In balloting Sunday, five non-so
cialist parties won 195 of the 349
seats in the Riksdag, while socialist
parties — the Social Democrats and
the Left Party — won a total of 154.
However, four of the five non
socialist parties rejected dealings with
the far-right New Democracy party,
which won 25 seats in its first parlia
mentary contest.
“The winds of change . . . have
unfortunately been so strong that they
blew straight through our party to one
further oifthe right,” said Carl Bildt,
the Moderate Party leader. His party
won 80 seats.
“We cannot continue to govern
with such a loss,” said Carlsson, 56,
who has been prime minister since
Olof Palme’s assassination in 1986.
Carlsson agreed to stay on as a tem
porary caretaker.
The Social Democrats have gov
erned Sweden since 1932, except for
an unstable period from 1976-82.
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Navy crash kills
6 in Persian Gulf
iTu-u-iruvu-v, naiuam — U.O.
Navy Sea Dragon helicopter
crashed in the Persian Gulf, kill
ing all six men aboard, the Navy
said Monday. It was the most
U.S. fatalities in a single incident
in the region since the Gulf War.
The men, whose bodies were
recovered from the gulf about 40
hours after the crash, were all
from the HM-15 squadron based
at Alameda Naval Air Station in
California, said the Naval Com
mand spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Tim
' O’Leary.
i iic crasn occurred ai p.m.
Saturday, minutes after the MH
53E helicopter took off from the
helicopter assault carrier USS
Pelileu 40 miles north of Bah
rain. No details on the crash were
made public until a U.S. newspa
per, the Kalamazoo Gazette, re
ported on it in Monday’s edi
tions.
“It was taking off from the
ship, and it crashed shortly there
after,” O’Leary told The Associ
ated Press. “We’ve just recov
ered the six bodies.” _
EC envoy arrives in Yugoslavia amid war
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — A
European Community peace negotia
tor Monday came to Yugoslavia in an
atmosphere of near total war in Croatia
fora summit with the republic’spresi
dent and the leader of rival Serbia.
Federal military units announced
an offensive to lift the siege of army
garrisons in the major Adriatic coastal
cities of Split, Zadar, and Sibenik. A
federal air force jet was shot down
near the Hungarian border.
Air raid sirfens wailed for the sec
ond consecutive day in Zagreb, the
Croatian capital, and television offi
cials said their transmitter outside the
Federal military units launch offensive;
air raid sirens wail in Croatian capital
city was slightly damaged by a mis
sile.
Lord Carrington, the European
Community mediator, faced the task
of finding common ground between
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman
and Serbian President Slobodan Mi
losevic.
What little the two men had in
common has all but disappeared in 2
1/2 months of fighting in Croatia that
has killed more than 400 people.
Croatia, despite battlefield losses
that have cost it a third of its territory,
stiffened both its political and mili
tary posture by barricading federal
army facilities.
The republic, which declared in
dependence in June, appeared to be
adopting the aggressive strategy of
neighboring Slovenia that led to with
drawal of federal soldiers there after
brief but fierce fighting.
Croatia accuses Serbia, the largest
of Yugoslavia’s six republics, of in
stigating the fighting in an attempt to
expand its territory as Yugoslavia
disintegrates. Milosevic says Croatia
cannot take Serb-dominated areas with
it if it secedes from Yugoslavia.
Airport officials in Dubrovnik, on
the Croatian coast, said Lord Car
rington arrived there Monday after
noon.
Sources in the British Embassy in
Belgrade said Lord Carrington would
meet Tudjman and Milosevic in neigh
boring Montenegro, an ally of Serbia.
Netfra&kan
Editor JanaP*d«r»«n
472- 1766
General Manager Dan Shaft II
Chairman Bill Vobefda
4364993
Professional Adviser Don Walton
473- 7301
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