Digest
Friday, November 10, 1995 Page 2
White House wants explanation
of O’Leary’s journalist rankings
WASHINGTON (AP) — Calling the project
“clearly unacceptable,” the White House de
manded Thursday that Energy Secretary Hazel
O’Leary explain why she spent $43,500 in pub
lic funds to rate journalists and analyze news
reports for unfavorable coverage of her agency.
O’Leary said she has provided “everything
they’ve asked for” surrounding the project and
scoffed at suggestions by some members of
Congress that she resign over the controversy.
She said she was not aware of the contract at
the time it was issued.
White House chief of staff Leon Panetta said
he didn't want to speculate on whether the con
troversy would cost O’Leary her job running
the Energy Department. “I want to sec what the
report is first,” he said.
But on Capitol Hill, some members of Con
gress— led by longtime Republican opponents
of O’Leary and the department — called for
her resignation. Several critics, including one
of the journalists rated, described the rankings
as a Nixon-like “enemies list.”
Speaking by telephone to three reporters late
Thursday, O’Leary said the contract had been
mischaractcrized. “This was a simple effort to
analyze the way the department disseminated
its messages. Nothing more,” she said.
Asked whether she considered resigning, the
secretary replied. “Of course not.”
O’Leary said the decision to conduct the
media study was made in the department’s pub
lic affairs office without her direct knowledge.
She said she saw two of the reports and after
■ T- ^ ^
that concluded that the information “is not ex
tremely valuable.”
One Democratic senator said O’Leary, al
ready under fire for her frequent travel at pub
lic expense, should reimburse taxpayers.
Earlier, O’Leary, who was traveling in Ba
ton Rouge, La., said she didn’t ask for an evalu
ation of reporters but for an analysis of news
coverage. She said it would have cost the de
partment S170,000 to do the job itself.
She said she told Panetta on Thursday morn
ing, “There's no enemies list, no gumshoes, no
investigators.”
The Energy Department hired a company
that conducts media analyses to scrutinize hun
dreds of articles and dozens of reporters’ sto
ries each month, from December 1994 through
August 1995, on issues from nuclear waste to
O’Leary’s reputation.
The Carma International service scored re
porters, politicians, newspapers and others on a
scale of 0 to 100, with zero denoting the most
unfavorable content, 50 a neutral reading and
100 most favorable.
Carma President Albert Barr said the goal
wasn’t to rate journalists’ attitudes, but to ex
amine news coverage.
“If a journalist on our list scores an unfavor
able rating, it doesn’t mean that journalist is
unfavorably disposed to that client,” he ex
plained. “It doesn’t mean you have a personal
bias against that company.”
“There's no enemies list, no
gumshoes, no investigators. ”
HAZEL O’LEARY
Secretary of Energy
The Wall Street Journal published a story
Thursday on the issue after the Energy Depart
ment supplied copies of reports for April and
July. The DOE then made all the monthly re
ports available, including graphics and pic charts
on negative vs. positive stories, editorials and
overall trends. The reports also highlight quotes,
and rank journalists, newspapers and politicians
in top _5 lists favorable, unfavorable and
neutral. In July, President Clinton got a 47 rank
ing on the “neutral'’ list.
The July report gave H. Josef Hebert of The
Associated Press a 30.8 score, indicating his
articles were the least favorable. That occurred
after he wrote about allegations that oversight
at DOE nuclear weapons facilities was sloppy
and that the health effects of radiation exposure
had been underestimated. In a story on secret
government radiation tests during the Cold War,
Hebert reported that there were still “serious
deficiencies ’ in the way the government pro
tects the rights of participants in human experi
ments.
Bosnia rederation accord revived
DAYTON, Ohio — In the most significant
breakthrough in Bosnia peace talks so far, Mus
lims and Croats agreed Thursday to revive a
moribund federation set up at U.S. urging in
1994 to end fighting between them. Although
negotiators were not thought to be nearing a
comprehensive peace agreement. Secretary of
State Warren Christopher was flying to Dayton
on Friday to rejoin the talks at Wright-Pattcrson
Air Force Base.
Sources in both delegations said a ceremony
would be held Friday to sign key aspects of the
federation accord, including agreements on the
return of refugees and the contentious issue of
reuniting the southern city of Mostar.
International mediators submitted on Thurs
day a new set of 11 draft agreements covering
Bosnia’s future constitutional makeup, its terri
torial division and military issues such as the
separation of forces, officials said. The docu
ments reportedly were so comprehensive that
the delegations would need several days to study
them.
In Washington, State Department spokesman
Nicholas Bums announced that Bosnian Presi
dent Alija Izetbegovic and Serb President
Slobodan Milosevic jointly requested the im
mediate resumption of unrestricted natural gas
deliveries to both countries on humanitarian
grounds and as a confidence-building measure.
The United States had said previously it
would not support a relaxation of economic
sanctions to Serbia until a final peace agreement
was reached. Bums noted that the U.S. govern
ment was recommending to the U.N. sanctions
committee an exception on humanitarian
grounds and pointed out that the vast majority
of the trade embargo remains in place.
The gas would be supplied from Russia and
U.N. monitors would ensure that the Serbs don’t
cut off the gas supplies to the Bosnian side, he
said.
Earlier Thursday, Christopher said in Wash
ington that he would fly to Dayton to get in
volved in the promising discussions.
“I hope I’ll be able to make some progress,”
he said.
Sources in the three Balkan delegations said
agreements that would revive the Muslim-Croat
federation, provide for the return of refugees,
restore a joint administration for Mostar, and
— perhaps most significantly — establish a
confederation between the federation and neigh
boring Croatia, could be ready for signing Fri
day.
The accord creating a Muslim-Croat federa
tion within Bosnia was signed in spring 1993.
That accord ended a year of fierce combat be
tween the two sides. But the new structure never
got off the ground and the two sides remain di
vided and wary of each other, despite occasional
U.S. appeals for closer cooperation in the war
fioiiinet Rrtcnia’c Cork vaKaIc'
Watterson will
retire ‘Calvin’
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Calvin and
Hobbes, the terrible tyke and his sidekick
tiger, will be retired from the funny paces
on Dec. 31. '
In a letter to newspaper editors Thurs
day, cartoonist Bill Watterson said his
decision was not a recent or easy one.
“I believe I’ve done what I can do
within the constraints of daily deadlines
and small panels,” Watterson, 38, said in
the letter. “I am eager to work at a more
thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic com
promises.”
“Calvin and Hobbes” hit the comic
pages in 1986 and entertained millions
with the antics a 6-year-old boy with an
ovcractive imagination and a not-so
stuffed tiger.
The letter featured a drawing of the two
cartoon characters getting kicked out a
door. The two buddies are"shown clutch
ing each other as they fly through the air,
leaving a trail of stars.v
In the past nine years, the pair launched
countless snowball ambushes, journeyed
through space, tormented a baby sitter and
ran afoul of Calvin’s patient parents.
“Calvin and Hobbes” is distributed
internationally to nearly 2,400 newspa
pers. More than 23 million copies of
books based on the cartoon are in print.
All 13 collections were million-dollar
sellers in their first year.
Navy will pause to think about
preventing discipline problems
WASHINGTON — Stung by yet another
embarrassing sex-related incident, the Navy is
ordering everyone in the service to pause for
24 hours of “preventive maintenance'’ against
future breakdowns in discipline.
“It’s time for the Navy to take a day and stand
down and take a hard look at ourselves,’’ Adm.
Mike Boorda, the chief of naval operations, said
Thursday. The day of introspection will be ob
served on a rotating basis by units worldwide,
he said.
The purpose will be to think of ways to avoid
discipline problems before they happen.
Bqorda’s announcement came after The
Washington Post reported Thursday that a drunk
Navy cook sexually assaulted a female sailor
aboard a commercial jet and that the 20 or so
other sailors on the flight chose not to intervene.
In San Diego, Lt. Cmdr. Bruce Cole, a Navy
spokesman, said it was not true that no one in
tervened. “Action was taken on her behalf to
stop the incident,’’ Cole said, but he would not
say what action was taken or by whom.
Boorda said he could not comment on the
sexual assault case because it is under investi
gation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Ser
vice. But in summoning several reporters to his
headquarters office in the Pentagon, the admi
ral made no secret of the fact that the reported
incident prompted him to act.
And there have been these other recent inci
dents:
• A 22-year-old Navy seaman based in
Okinawa is on trial there, along with two Ma
rines, for the rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl.
The seaman, Marcus D. Gill, admitted in court
Tuesday that he raped the girl after abducting
her Sept. 4.
• Navy Capt. Everett Greene, leader of a
SEAL commando unit and a former head of the
Navy’s equal-opportunity office, was charged
with having an "unduly familiar” relationship
with a female subordinate. He was acquitted in
a court-martial in Washington last month, but
Navy Secretary John Dalton decided this week
to recommend that his scheduled promotion to
admiral be stopped.
All this comes four years after the Tailhook
scandal of September 1991 in which drunken
Navy and Marine Corps aviators at a conven
tion in Las Vegas groped and sexually harassed
more than two dozen female colleagues.
The last time the Navy called a service-wide
stand down’ was in 1992 in response to
Tailhook. During a “stand down,” normal du
ties are suspended to focus on a particular prob
lem, such as a rash of accidents.
Boorda said he saw no reason to impose any
new or tougher behavior standards o: regula
tions, but wanted every sailor to think about how
to stay out of trouble.
As an example of the “preventive mainte
nance” he tlujiks is needed, Boorda cited the
"buddy systljip for sailors on liberty at foreign
ports in whip sailors go ashore with a friend
so that help is available if needed.
News
in a ( (j
Minute
Default looms over
pair of budget bills
WASHINGTON — With a potential *
federal default and government shutdown
at stake. Congress toiled over a pair of
budget bills Thursday and lurched closer
to a veto showdown with President
Clinton.
A day after the House approved legis
lation that would provide stopgap funds
for government agencies through Dec. 1,
the Senate adopted the measure by 50-46
after softening House-approved reins on
lobbying by many federally aided private
groups.
The House voted 227-194 for another
bill extending federal borrowing author
ity through Dec. 12. Capping a marathon
day, the Senate approved that measure by
49-47 and shipped it back to the House
after voting by voice to remove language
killing the Commerce Department.
The House was expected to accept the
Senate version of both measures and ship
them to the White House on Friday, where
administration officials pledged that both
bills would be vetoed.
Judge upholds
scouts’ gay ban
TRENTON, N.J. —A state judge, cit
ing the biblical story of Sodom and
Gomorrah as evidence that homosexual
ity is immoral, upheld the Boy Scouts’
ban on gays.
Superior Court Judge Patrick J.
McGann found that the Monmouth Coun
cil of the Boy Scouts did not violate state
discrimination laws when it expelled
James Dale as an assistant scoutmaster in
1990 after learning he is gay.
Israeli officials
unearth conspiracy
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin’s slaying was part of a care
fully planned right-wing conspiracy,
Israel’s police minister said Thursday.
Police unearthed a cache of guns and ex
plosives at the home of the confessed
killer.
Two more religious Jewish extremists
were hauled into court handcuffed and
shackled, and police said they planned to
charge one of them with murder. Only one
suspect has been accused of murder so
far — confessed gunman Yigal Amir.
“We believe there was a conspiracy by
a group of people who had the infrastruc
ture and prepared their aims quite cau
tiously,” Police Minister Moshe Shahal
said.
At least five suspects, ineludingAmir,
are being held in connection with Rabin’s
assassination. Two, Dror Adani, 26, and
Ohad Skomick, 23, were brought before
a Te! Aviv magistrate Thursday.
Nebraskan
Editor j. Christopher Hain,
472-1766
Managing Editor Rainbow Rowell
Assoc. News Editors DeDra Janssen
General Manager Dan^hattif
Production Manager Katherine Policky '
Publications Board Chairman Tim Hedegaard, 436-9253
Professional Adviser Don Walton, 473-7301
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1995 DAILY NEBRASKAN