News Digest
Tuesday, March 12,1996 Page 2
Clinton tags GOP efforts
as \anti-environmental’
HACKENSACK, N.J. — In a
stinging denunciation of Republi
can clean-earth policies. President
Clinton accused Congress on Mon
day of engineering an “anti-envi
ronmental campaign” in concert
with industrial lobbyists.
Making his first election-year
address on the environment,
Clinton proposed $2 billion in tax
breaks for companies that clean up
and develop land contaminated by
toxic waste. And he promised more
vetoes for bills he thinks would
undermine the environment.
“When it comes to protecting
our air, our food, our water, I can
not sacrifice America’s values or
America’s future,” Clinton told a
crowd of 6,000 at Fairleigh
Dickinson University.
Fighting a bad winter cold,
Clinton also traveled to neighbor
ing New York City to be honored
as Irish America magazine’s “Irish
American of the Year.” The presi
dent, who heads to Egypt on Tues
day for an anti-terrorism summit,
also met in Hackensack with fami
lies of two American victims of
Middle East bombings.
In his main address of the day,
Clinton called for a bipartisan ap
proach to environmental control —
a point easily lost in a highly parti
san speech.
“It is incredible to me now that
the environment has, for the first
time in a generation, become a
source of political division,” the
president said.
His voice cracking from his cold,
Clinton added, “Congress has
mounted the most aggressive anti
cnvironmcntal campaign in our his
tory. And I am proud that we have
stood against that.”
Poll after poll shows Clinton
making strides against Republicans
by portraying them as enemies of
the environment. Every word and
every photo here was designed to
capitalize on that.
“When it comes to
protecting our air; our
food, our water, I
cannot sacrifice
America's values or
America's future."
BILL CLINTON
U.S. President
Republicans argue that the En
vironmental Protection Agency is
a bulky bureaucracy that ovcrrcgu
lates. EPA money and rules can be
trimmed without hurting the envi
ronment, the GOP says.
Clinton began the day with a tour
of a Superfund site in nearby
Wallington, N.J. His motorcade
rolled past a sign reading, “Danger:
Hazardous Waste” and wound
down to the bottom of a bowl
shaped field that consists of20,000
tons of snow-covered, PCB-con
taminated soil.
At the rim of the field stood an
elementary school, its students lin
ing a security fence and shouting
down happily to Clinton.
He was told that cleanup work
at the abandoned Industrial Latex
site stopped last year after Congress
imposed a 25 percent cut in the
Superfund budget.
“We cannot afford to just stop
things like this,” Clinton replied.
Though the GOP budget in
cluded a major cut for Suncrfund
projects, so did a makeshift spend
ing bill signed by the president this
year to reopen the government.
The EPA says the budget re
straints forced the agency to aban
don cleanup work at 60 other toxic
waste dump sites across the coun
try.
Prosecutor says McDougals
planned ‘perfect’ crimes
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — As gov
ernor, Bill Clinton helped secure a
$300,000 business loan for one of his
Whitewater partners that she instead
put into her personal checking ac
count, a federal, prosecutor said Mon
day. <c
Susan McDougal had told financier
David Hale that she was going to use
the money for her real estate market
ing company, prosecutor Ray Jahn
said in his opening statement. Hale
later spoke with Clinton at the Capi
tol about the loan, Jahn said.
Jahn alleged that Mrs. McDougal,
her ex-husband, James McDougal and
Clinton’s successor. Gov. Jim Guy
Tucker, obtained nearly $3 million in
illegal loans from Hale in the mid
1980s.
“It was the intention of the defen
dants to go in, obtain the money, make
their profits and sneak the money
back,” Jahn said. “This was nearly the
perfect crime. Until David Hale came
forward in 1993, the crime was un
discovered.”
Defense attorneys attacked Hale’s
credibility and urged jurors not to be
lieve him.
“He was a fraud from the top of
his head to the bottom of his feet,” said
Tucker’s lawyer W.H. “Buddy”
Sutton.
Tucker and the McDougals are ac
cused of arranging sales of real estate
at inflated prices to funnel extra
money into Hale’s Capital Manage
ment Services Inc., a Small Business
Administration-backed lender.
McDougal faces 19 charges. Tucker
11 and Mrs. McDougal eight.
Jahn said everything about the
loans appeared proper, but that be
cause of plotting to overvalue prop
erty and determining who would get
loans, the three broke the law, Jahn
said.
“The fraud was in the lies told and
the truth concealed,” he said.
During a break in Jahn’s statement,
Tucker said he didn’t recall the events
the same way as prosecutors.
IvlcDougal defense attorney Sam
Heuer said “That meeting between
Hale and Clinton at the Capitol never,
ever, ever took place.”
Clinton has called Hale’s claims “a
bunch of bull.” Clinton is expected to
testify in person, via videotape or by
satellite for the defense, probably
sometime in early April. Neither
Clinton nor first lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton arc charged in the case.
During their opening statements,
lawyers for the governor and
McDougal criticized Hale as a man
seeking reduced penalties for his own
crimes — a pair of felony fraud
charges to which he pleaded guilty two
years ago this month.
Madison Guaranty “has been
looked at by more examiners than any
other institution in the United States,”
Heuer said. “Nobody but the Office
of the Independent Counsel, based on
David Hale’s story, has found these
charges to exist.”
— * ■ ■
Taiwan goes on alert
as live fire begins
TAIPEI, Taiwan — While China
growled, Taiwan welcomed U.S. war
ships under orders toiffcad toward the
troubled region on the eve of Chinese
live-fire war games.
Taiwan went on heightened alert
Tuesday as the Chinese military exer
cises were scheduled to begin off the
island’s coast.
China is starting eight days of air
and sea maneuvers in a 6,600-square
mile zone which stretches to the mid
point of the Taiwan Strait — an unof
ficial border both sides try not to cross.
U.S. Secretary of State Warren
Christopher said the U.S. ships were
meant to be “in a position to be help
ful if they need to be.”
Taiwanese government spokesman
Jason Hu said the American vessels
were intended “to maintain peace, and
not to intervene” in the dispute.
The military has said that judging
from Chinese military movements in
recent weeks, the exercise will include
anti-submarine maneuvers, anti-ship
and anti-aircraft missiles, artillery and
bombing runs.
“We have heightened alert, espe
cially on the frontline islands which
lie face to face with the exercise area,”
a military official, requesting anonym
ity, said Tuesday.
Taiwan was jittery Monday as
shareholders bailed out of Taiwanese
stocks and the public rushed to buy
millions of American dollars as a
hedge against a possible conflict.
“Taiwan is a part of China and not
a protectorate of the United States,”
warned Chinese Foreign Minister
Qian Qichen, after the United States
moved one aircraft carrier battle group
nearer Taiwan and ordered a second
to quit the Persian Gulf early and head
toward the region.
Reflecting his government’s insis
tence that China’s moves arc a threat
to the prosperous region, not just to
Taiwan, Hu said: “We believe this is
welcomed by countries in the region.
We are not hoping for war, so any acts
conducive to peace will be welcome.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense William
J. Perry said he did not think Beijing
will invade the island, and predicted a
non-military solution to the crisis.
China regards Taiwan as a renegade
province. The Nationalists retreated to
the island in 1949 after losing a civil
war on the mainland to the Commu
nists. Both Taipei and Beijing formally
have espoused reunification, but China
is convinced Taiwanese President lie
Teng-hui covertly wants indepen
dence.
Qian told reporters in Beijing that
China still hoped to achieve reunifi
cation peacefully, but reiterated that
Beijing would not renounce the use
of force.
“If foreign forces invade Taiwan or
the Taiwan authorities attempt to go
in for Taiwan independence, we will
not sit idly by,” he warned.
Following the three missiles it test
fired near Taiwan on Friday, China is
starting eight days of air and sea ma
neuvers in a 6,600-square-mi lc rect
angle that stretches to the mid-point
of the Taiwan Straits — an unofficial *
border both sides try not to cross.
While any serious miscalculation
could spark hostilities, there are also
indications that neither side is eager
for war.
China has orchestrated its moves
carefully. Friday’s test missiles
splashed harmlessly into the sea and
were thought to carry dummy war
heads.
Airplanes and ships have been
warned to avoid the war games zone,
but their routes will not be seriously
disrupted.
Taiwan’s military said the exercise
appeared similar to one last August,
and added that Taiwanese had “no
need to overreact.”
Stray dogs keep boy alive in woods,
parents give new home to ‘angels’
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. —Two dogs
led a boy to the brink of death, then
saved his life. Now they are going to
get a new home.
Josh Carlisle, a 10-year-old with
Down syndrome, was playing in his
yard when a couple of wandering dogs
apparently caught his eye and he fol
lowed them into the rugged, wooded
Ozarks near his home.
For three days, as temperatures
dipped into single digits, up to 350
volunteers searched for the boy.
On Saturday, a man on horseback
heard barking and found Josh in the
company of the two protective dogs.
“The dogs took him in as if they
were his mother,” Sheriff Ralph
Hendrix said Monday.
“They probably curled up next to
him and kept him warm, warm enough
to stay alive on us.”
The dogs arc “God’s angels,” said
Josh’s stepfather, Lynn Coffey.
He and Josh’s mother, Johnny
Coffey, planned to give the strays a
new home for keeping the boy alive.
The smaller of the dogs, a dachs
hund, followed rescuer Oscar “Junior”
Nell and his horse through rough ter
rain as they carried the cold little boy
to help.
The dog tried to keep up when a
police car rushed Josh to a medical
helicopter, but his tired legs gave out.
Nell gave him a cheesc-and-bolo
gna sandwich. “He stayed with us
through thick and thin,” Nell said.
The second dog, described by the
sheriff as a heeler, a type of dog used
to herd livestock, was found Sunday
afternoon by Josh’s next-door neigh
bors.
Tony Thomas saw the dog on a hill
near their house and put food out to
lure it closer.
“It was just a real timid dog,” his
wife, Julia, said Monday.
“It wouldn’t cat unless wc left it
alone.”
Both dogs will remain with the
sheriff’s department until Josh comes
home from Cox Medical Center South
in Springfield.
The boy was in fair condition with
frostbitten toes.
Springfield businessman Tom
Seabaugh had offered a $100 reward
for each dog brought to Josh: “Wc
want to have a ceremony.
“We just feel like those little guys
need to be rewarded.”
President’s Middle East visit
prelude to Israeli peace pact
WASHINGTON — President
Clinton’s trip to the Middle East is the
first step toward a strategic anti-ter
rorism and intelligence agreement
between the United States and Israel,
one designed to bolster Israel’s capac
ity to make peace securely, diplomatic
sources said Monday.
The agreement, now in preparation,
would be announced in April during a
visit to Washington by Israeli Prime
Minister Shimon Peres. One intended
purpose is to enhance Peres’ prospects
for winning election May 29 against
the Likud opposition.
Clinton goes to Israel after partici
pating Wednesday in the “Summit of
the Peacemakers” at Sharm cl-Sheik,
the Israeli-built resort on Egypt’s Red
Sea coast.
“Leaders from the Middle East and
around the world will stand as one for
peace in the Middle East, together to
combat the merchants of hatred with
every means at our command,”
Clinton said Monday night in New
York.
Accepting an award for his work
in Northern Ireland, the president
added: “We must not let the terrorists
in the Middle East have the victory
they seek — the death of every hope
for peace.”
Clinton plans to leave Secretary of
State Warren Christopher behind in
Jerusalem, and that stopover will re
sult in a formal counterterrorism
agreement, providing for shared intel
ligence information and
counterterrorism expertise and equip
ment.
CIA Director John Deutch is ac
companying the president to the sum
mit, and will contribute to finalizing
the accord. The larger strategic agree
ment, which stops short of a formal
defense treaty, will include
counterterrorism provisions and oth
ers still under consideration, said the
diplomatic sources, speaking on con
dition of anonymity. An administra
tion source confirmed the account.
The agreement to be announced in
Israel will embellish this help, provid
ing for a continuing cooperation ar
rangement. It and the security accord
due in April are designed to flesh out
Clinton’s promise fo stand by Israel
as it takes risk for peace.
Editor J. Christopher Hein
472-1766
Managing Editor Doug Kouma
Assoc. News Editors Matt Waite
Sarah Sea let
Opinion Page Editor Doug Peters
Wire Editor Michelle Gamer
Copy Desk Editor Tim Pearson
Sports Editor Mitch Sherman
Arts & Entertainment
Editor Jeff Randall
Photo Director Staci McKee
Night News Editors Rebecca Oltmans
Melanie Branded
Anne Hjersman
Beth Narans
Art Director Aaron Steckelberg
General Manager Dan Shattil
Production Manager Katherine PoHcky
Advertising Manager Amy Struthers
Asst. Advertising Mgr. Laura Wilson
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