Plane smashes house; six killed
BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va.—
Milton Barnhart was sitting at his
kitchen table Wednesday morning
when an Air National Guard transport
plane crashed into his house in a huge
fireball, killing all six people on board.
Barnhart’s house was destroyed,
but he escaped without serious injury,
with his hair singed.
Witnesses said one wing or engine
on the four-engine plane appeared to
be on fire before the crash.
The turboprop C-130E was part of
the 167th Tactical Airlift Group based
at the Eastern West Virginia Regional
Airport at Martinsburg, 20 miles east
of Berkeley Springs in the state’s
Eastern Panhandle.
Air National Guard Maj. Edward
Dockeney Jr. said an Air Force inves
tigation board will convene to deter
mine the cause of the crash. He would
not discuss possible causes.
Barnhart, 77, a retired railroad
worker who lives alone, said the plane
slammed into his two-story, frame
farmhouse outside Berkeley Springs
about 9:30 a.m.
“I ran out and got out of there,” he
said. “It was a fire inside and outside.
It took the whole roof off the house
and half of the first floor.. . . The
whole porch was on fire. The yard was
on fire.”
Only his chimney was left stand
ing. Also destroyed were a shed and a
pickup parked nearby.
Barnhart said he only saved a
charred photograph of a grandson,
and he clutched it as he talked to
reporters. He could not immediately
find his three dogs, he said.
He was shaken up but not seriously
hurt. The heat from the fire singed his
eyebrows and hair, and melted the
vinyl siding on a house 50 feet away.
“It’s just unbelievable, as big as
the plane was, there is just nothing
left,” said C. Mike Coates, a
Martinsburg firefighter. The C-130
has a wingspan of about 130 feet.
JudyToungblood, 30, who livesabout
100 feet from Barnhart, said she “heard
a huge explosion and the house just
shook.”
“There was an extremely loud
roar,” she said. “I can’t describe the
sound. The next thing I knew there
was just a huge explosion and the
balls of fire were just hundreds of feet
in the air."
Her husband, Dale, said authori
ties told him the plane carried 6,000
gallons of fuel when it crashed. He
said they ordered residents of a couple
of houses near the crash site to stay
away until the fire was out.
Betty Yost, who lives a quarter
mile away, was driving down the road
when the plane crashed.
“I looked up and saw all the fire in
the sky and I thought, ‘Oh my God,
what’s going on?”’ she said.
Controversial abortion drug
works after sex, study says
BOSTON — A controversial
French-made abortion drug is also
a highly effective morning-after
pill, preventing all pregnancies in
women who have unprotected sex,
a study found.
The drug, RU486, has not been
approved for use in the United
States.
A study conducted in Scotland
and published in Thursday’s New
England Journal of Medicine,con
cluded that making the drug avail
able for use after intercourse could
reduce the need for abortions.
The drug is available only in
. France, where it was introduced in
1988, and in Britain, Sweden and
China.
The drug acts on the hormonal
system to trigger abortions early in
pregnancy. It causes the embryo or
. fetus to become separated from the
uterine wall and be expelled.
When used as a morning-after
pill, RU486 is believed to prevent
implantation of the fertilized egg in
the wall of the uterus.
In the study, doctors from the
University of Edinburgh compared
RU486 to high doses of the birth
control pill,now the standard morn
ing-after approach, but one that
frequently causes nausea and
doesn’t always work.
“People are trying to find a
highly effccti ve form of post-coital
contraceptive that is easy to use
and free from side effects,” said Dr.
Anna Glasier, who directed the
study. “It would seem that RU486
meets those requirements.”
The research was conducted on
800 women who sought emergency
contraception within three days of
having unprotected intercourse.
Half the women were given
RU486 and half got birth control
pills. None of the women taking
RU486 got pregnant, compared
with four pregnancies among those
receiving birth contrt)! pills. RU486
was also less likely to cause nau
sca.
Advisers hope debates
can push Bush ahead
WASHINGTON — With a
cache of hard-edged television ads
and high hopes for the debates,
President Bush’s advisers are cling
ing to the hope they can find a silver
bullet to slay Bill Clinton’s cam
paign.
The Bush team is struggling to
catch up in the campaign’s final
weeks by making Americans doubt
Clinton's character and judgment
and by spreading fear that the Demo
crat will increasecveryone’s taxes.
But in the political community
there is a growing belief— though
not unanimous — that the presi
dent faces certain defeat.
“I think it’s too late,” said
Reagan White House political di
rector Lyn Nofzigcr.
“The elec lion’s over,” said Colo
rado College political scientist Tom
Cronin, echoing sentiments of many
Republicans and Democrats. “This
is a reierenuum on economic lead
ership and he (Bush) has lost it.”
“It’s time for the Hail Mary,’’
said GOP strategist John Sears. “I
don’t know if there is anything he
can do.’*
Scars said the person who can
elect Bush is Clinton, by making
mistakes—“and he shows no sign
of doing that.”
However, Jody Powell, press
secretary to President Carter, said
the combination of the forthcom
ing debates, television ads and Ross
Perot’s big-money campaign all
make the outcome uncertain.
‘Tm not one who thinks the
thing is over,” Powell said. “Most
people will be getting more infor
mation from paid ads than from the
media, and that always takes the
campaign into a different phase.”
Bush’s advisers hope the de
bates, in particular, will sharpen
-
It’s clearly an oppor
tunity for us to kick
out of the stall we’ve
been stpck in and
overtake him.
— Lake
senior Bush campaign
adviser
-ft -
negative impressions of Clinton.
“Bush has always done well in
debates,” said James Lake, a senior
adviser to the presidcnt’scampaign.
“Bush’s style is temperate, it is
careful and it is based on experi
ence. Bill Clinton’s style is flashy,
it is slick and it is based on the kind
of person he is,” Lake said.
“It’s clearly an opportunity for us
to kick out of the stall we’ve been
stuck in and overtake him,” Lake
said.
Bush’scampaign will run tough
ads at a furious pace throughout the
debates and until the end of the
race. They’ll be poised to seize on
any Clinton miscues in the debates
and turn them into television spots,
Lake said.
Charlie Black, another senior
adviser, said Bush’scampaign has
used only about 15 percent of its
$30 million-plus advertising bud
get.
*1 .
“The most important thing is,
people do not know a lot about Bill
Clinton. Hopefully the debates and
the campaigning and the advertis
ing will cause people to focus on
the differences in their economic
plans.”
Leaders hail trade pact
3 heads of state
highlight agreement
at Texas meeting
SAN ANTONIO— President Bush
participated in a high-profile cer
emony in a must-win state Wednes
day to highlight the successful rfego
tiation of an agreement creating the
world’s largest free trade zone.
With Canadian Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney and Mexican Presi
dent Carlos Salinas de Gortari look
ing on, Bush hailed the 2,OQO-page
North American Free Trade'Agree
ment that was negotiated last August.
“This meeting marks a turning point
in the history of our three countries,”
Bush told acrowd of dignitaries. “We
are creating the largest, richest and
most productive market in the entire
world.”
Bush defended the pact against
criticism that it will result in the loss
of U.S. jobs from companies being
lured across the border to lower wages
in Mexico. Bush said the removal of
trade barriers would expand U.S. ex
ports to Mexico, which is already
America’s third largest market.
“If anyone doubts the importance
of trade for creating jobs, they should
come to this great stale,” Bush told the
crowd saying that exports from,Tcxas
alone totaled S47 billion last year
with $ 15 billion of that amount going
to Mexico.
Salinas told the crowd that “we can
all win with this agreement” while
Mulroney called free trade “the path
way to prosperity.”
The nations’ trade ministers ini
tialed the completed text in what was
largely a symbolic ceremony. Under
U.S. law, Bush cannot actually sign
the agreement before Dec. 17.
Calling the event “pure political
theater,” Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.
said, “If the Bush administration spent
Merchandise trade
between pact partners
All figures in billions of U.S. dollars
HI i*a
■main
U.S. trade U.S. trade Canadian trade
with Canada with Mexico with Mexico
*9*;.
tie
1989 90 ’91
Source: U.S. Trade Representative.
Bureau of Economic Analysis. Statistics Canada
as much lime and energy negotiating
the NAFT A as it spends holding cam
paign events built around it, we would
have a far better NAFTA.”
If approved by lawmakers in all
three countries, the trade agreement is
scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1,
1994, beginning a process of remov
ing all tariffs and other barriers to
trade, services and investment be
tween the three countries over a 15
year period.
The pact is designed to create the
world’s largest and richest free trade
zone, covering 360 million people.
American labor unions and many
environmentalists strongly oppose the
pact, charging that it will cost up to a
half-million American jobs as more
companies move their operations to
Mexico to take advantage of low
wages and lax enforcement of envi
ronmental laws.
The administration disputes that
AP
view, arguing that the agreement will
end upereating more jobs than it loses
as U.S. companies arc able to boost
their exports to Mexico.
“This is a very positive issue for us
and the president,” said Bush cam
paign spokeswoman Torie Clarke.
Democratic candidate Bill Clinton
on Sunday came out in support of the
free trade agreement although he said
additional steps should be taken to
protect American jobs and the envi
ronment.
He said his objections could be met
without re-negotiating the pact.
The Bush administration has seen
the NAFTA agreement as a corner
stone of its free-market philosophy,
arguing that the best way to bolster the
U.S. economy is to remove foreign
barriers to the sale of American prod
ucts.
Nebraskan
Editor Chris Hoptsnspsrgsr
472- 1766
Managing Editor Kris Karnopp
Publications Board
Chairman Tom Masssy
468-8761
Professional Adviser Don Walton
473- 7301
FAX NUMBER 472-1761
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1992 DAILY NEBRASKAN
*
Marketing experts praise Perot’s salesmanship
WAbHllNtj I Ul\ — Political operatives may
scoff at Ross Perot’s campaign methods, but
marketing experts say the Texas billionaire is
using classic business sales techniques.
‘The first stepof persuasion is making people
painfully aware of how much they need what
you arc selling,” says Tom Reilly, a suburban
St. Louis consultant who advises companieson
how to improve marketing techniques.
In his 30-minute ad Tuesday night on CBS
TV, Perot gave viewers a detailed version of
what he thinks is wrong with their economy and
President Bush’s handling of it. In doing so, “he
paved the way for selling the solution” during
a second 30-minute spot Friday night on ABC,
Reilly said.
That could be a tough sell, since Perot’s
recommendations include higher taxes and deep
cuts in popular government programs.
Jack Trout, a Greenwich, Conn., advertising
consultant, said Perot has cleverly sugarcoalcd
the bitter pill he isasking Americans to swallow
by calling his program "shared sacrifice."
That docs a good a job with some bad
news,” said Trout, coauthor with his business
partner A1 Rics of the book, "Marketing War
fare.
The experts said Perot brings to the political
stump the same skills that made him a legend on
the 1BM sales force, where he once took only a
month to fill a sales tjuota for an entire year.
* “Allof persuasionisbuiltonasimplcmodel;
obviously he understands that model," said
Reilly.
With its avalanche of facts and figures on
charts and graphs that viewers often had diffi
culty reading, Perot’s first broadcast didn’t
have the polish of a statc-of-thc art political
production.
He hammered away with a simple message:
The economy is in trouble because the govern
ment is burdened with an intolerable debt the
country can’t afford to keep accumulating.
‘‘It is like having a guy coming into your
olficc with a little pile of flip charts and taking
you through the selling deal,” Trout said.
“In the medium of television, he should have
spent a few more dollars on the production,
since in reality the chart was critical to the
selling,” the consultant added. Still, overnight
Nielson ratings showed that Perot’s broadcast
commanded a large audience.
In a survey of 17 markets where the program
was shown live, it ranked second in its time slot
to ABC’s “Full House” and ahead of NBC’s
“Quantum Leap.”
