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B- NeWSQgEST
Edited by Michelle Gamer
Friday, April 5,1996 * Page 2
Cost a factor in
lack of ‘black box’
WASHINGTON—Air Force One
and other military VIP aircraft jarry
“black box” flight data recorders. But
for cost reasons, the Air Force decided
against installing the equipment on the
plane that carried Commerce Secre
tary Ron Brown to his death.
The data recorders would not have
kept the airplane in the sky, but they
might have provided a clue as to why
Brown’s plane strayed almost two
miles off course be fore crashing into a
Croatian hillside near Dubrovnik.
The omission will hamper an inves
tigation that got under way in stormy
weather Thursday, a day after the crash.
The Federal Aviation Administra
tion requires all but the smallest com
mercial passenger planes to carry flight
recorder equipment. But the FAA has
no jurisdiction over the military.
In 1974 — a year alter the plane
that went down in Croatia was pur
chased — the Air Force established a
policy that all new aircraft be equipped
with black boxes except in a few spe
cial circumstances. An Air Force offi
cial, who spoke only on condition of
anonymity, said putting the equipment
on the existing fleet would have been
prohibitively expensive.
“We’d probably like to go back and
revisit a decision of that kind,” the offi
cial said. “Somebody decided that with
the money that’s available for a variety
of things on the plane,” it was better to
invest in systems that help keep a plane
Hying as opposed toone that was helpful
to investigators afier a crash.
Military investigators who arrived
in Dubrovnik Thursday have some
evidence to go on. Officials have im
pounded a voice recording taken in the
airport tower of conversations between
ground controllers and the crew of the
T43 carrying Brown.
Because the plane, a military ver
sion of a Boeing 737, was purchased in
1973 for trainingnavigators rather than
carrying passengers, it was not
equipped with the flight recorders,
according to Air Force Gen. Howell
Estes III, director ofoperations for the
Joints Chiefs of Staff.
But as of 1988, the Air Force con
verted the plane for VIP travel and
other passenger uses from its home in
Ramstcin Air Base, Germany, without
backfitting the aircrafl with the black
boxes. This ran counter to a general
Air Force policy that VIP and other
passenger-style planes be equipped
with the voice and data recorders.
“We have not been able to ascertain
why this particular aircraft was not
equipped with them,” said Maj. Robin
Chandler, an Air Force spokeswoman.
A senior de fense official, who spoke
on condition of anonymity, said com
bat aircrafl are generally not equipped
with the recorders for fear that if the
planes crashed in enemy territory, the
tapes would provide a neat summary
of the aircraft’s capability.
Clinton signs farm bill
creating new payments
WASHINGTON — President
Clinton quietly and reluctantly signed
historic farm legislation Thursday that
snaps the decades-old link between
crop prices and government subsidies.
Although the law rightfully lifts
many government controls on farm
ers, it “fails to provide an adequate
safety net for family fanners,” the presi
dent said from a White House mourn
ing the death of Commerce Secretary
Ron Brown.
Clinton opposed the key farm pro
visions but said growers need to know
what the government has in mind for
them as they head to the fields this
spring. Agriculture Secretary Dan
Glickman pledged the department
would do everything in its power to
carry out the law.
The law ends government-guaran
teed prices for corn, other feed grains,
cotton, rice and wheat — a staple of
U.S. farm policy since the Depression.
Instead, farmers will get guaran
teed payments that decline over seven
years and an immediate end to most
planting controls. The payments total
$36 billion over seven years and ac
count for most of the spending in the
$47 billion law.
“This farm bill is the most historic
change in American agriculture since
the 1930s,” said Sen. Richard Lugar,
R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Agri
culture Committee. “Production and
supply controls will end, and farmers
will produce for the market for the first
time since the Great Depression.”
The administration opposed the bill
because it gives farmers a windfall of
high payments when skyrocketing
market prices mean traditional subsi
dies would have fallen sharply. After
ward, the guaranteed payments
dwindle, giving growers little protec
tion if prices collapse.
Clinton said he would propose leg
islation next year to restore the safety
net. Congress will definitely get a shot
“7 his farm bill is the
most historic change in
American agriculture
since the 1930s. ”
RICHARD LUGAR
Indiana senator
at crafting new farm legislation when
the law expires in seven years.
Supporters of the new law say the
guaranteed payments would put finan
cial planning and risk management
into the hands of farmers while guar
anteeing farm programs against almost
certain cuts in the future.
“With one signature on the market
transition contract, farmers will be free
from seven years of paperwork and
long 1 incs at the county US DA office,”
said Rep. Pat Roberts, R-Kan„ chair
man of the House Agriculture Com
mittee and chief author of the plan.
Glickman said the department will
work on creating tools for farmers to
find alternatives, such as revenue in
surance, to traditional subsidies. He
also said he would urge farmers and
bankers to work on ways for farmers to
save their payments for a rainy day.
Although the administration op
posed the core provision, the bill held
enough sweeteners to avoid a veto,
including money for conservation and
environmental protection and for rural
development and research, and a guar
antee that food stamps and other nutri
tion programs will continue while
Congress works to overhaul the wel
fare system.
The administration also supported
crop provisions giving growers more
flexibility to plant what they want.
“The expansion of planting flex
ibility will improve U.S. competitive
ness in world markets,” Clinton said.
Kaczknski
Continued from Page 1
neighbors as going everywhere on
foot or on an old bicycle, have
mailed bombs from locations in
cluding San Francisco; Oakland,
Calif.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Chi
cago? Other bombs were left in
cities around the country.
Dick Lundbcrg, a neighbor, said
he sometimes gave Kaczynski rides
into Helena, where plane connec
tions were available.
Asked about the possibility of
accomplices, one federal agent said:
“This guy is a loner. He wouldn’t
work with someone else.’’
FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, To
bacco and Firearms agents found a
partially completed pipe bomb in
the loft at Kaczynski’s cabin, ac
cording to an affidavit by FBI agent
Donald J. Sachtleben.
Ten three-ring binders were re
covered filled with “page after page
of meticulous writings and sketches
which I recognize to be diagrams of
explosive devices,” Sachtleben
said. The diagrams show cross-sec -
tions of pipe bombs and electrical
circuitry.
In addition, agents found galva
nized metal, copper and plastic
pipes, four of them with copper
plates sealing one end, “one of the
first steps in the construction of a
pipe bomb,” Sachtleben said.
Federal officials,' who spoke on
the condition of anonymity, said
searchers also found two manual
typewriters. The Unabomber has
sent a sheaf of typed letters over the
past few years, and investigators
wanted to compare those with the
typewriters.
A former assistant professor of
mathematics at the University of
California at Berkeley, Kaczynski
graduated from Harvard when he
was barely 20, and received a
master’s degree and doctorate from
thc-University of Michigan several
years later. Academic-oriented and
‘Teddy was unusually
smart...He made it
through high school in
three years.. .1 didn Y
see much emotion, just
quiet. ”
EVELYN VANDERLAAN
neighbor of Kaczynski’s family
obsessed with technology, he fits
the FBI psychological profile of the
suspect.
After retreating from academic
life in the 1970s, Kaczynski lived
in Utah, doing odd jobs and menial
labor.
Evelyn Vanderlaan, who was a
neighbor of Kaczynski’s family in
the working-class Chicago suburb
of Evergreen Park, 111., said: “Teddy
was unusually smart.... He made it
through high school in three years.
... I didn’t sec much emotion, just
quiet.”
In court Thursday, Kaczynski
appeared calm and spoke softly but
clearly before U.S. District Judge
Charles C. Lovell. He consulted
frequently with hisattomey, public
defender Michael Donahoe.
When Lovell asked if he were
unabl e to afford a lawyer, Kaczynski
said, “Quite correct.” He said “no”
when the judge asked if he had any
mental impairments.
Lovell told Kaczynski and his
lawyer to decide by noon Friday
whether they want a preliminary
hearing and a hearing to determine
bail.
A federal grand jury is sched
uled to convene April 17 in Great
Falls and will decide whether to
hand down an indictment in the
case, a federal law enforcement
official said on the condition of
anonymity.
Evidence
What federal agents found in the
mountain cabin of Theodore John
Kaczynski:
His notes
• 10 three-ring binders full
of writings and sketches of
bombs and electrical
circuits
• Notes on chemical
reactions that cause
explosions
• Books on electrical
circuitry and chemistry
• Logs of experiments
His materials
• Pipes of galvanized
metal, copper and plastic
• Containers of zinc,
aluminum, lead, silver
oxide, potassium chlorate
and sodium chlorate,
all of which can be
used in bombs
• Batteries,
electric wires
His tools §
• A partially completed !
pipe bomb
• Drills, drill bits,
hacksaw blades,
wire cutters
AP
Freemen sit down with negotiators
for first time during 11-day standoff
JORDAN, Mont.—Sitting on fold
ing chairs on a dirt road, the besieged
Freemen met with negotiators Thurs
day for the first time in the 11-day
standoff.
Four Freemen met for about an hour
and a half with four negotiators at the
edge of the fugitives’ compound. At
least one of the negotiators meeting
with the Freemen was a federal agent,
but the identities of the other three
could not be immediately confirmed.
The identities of the Freemen repre
sentatives were also unknown.
One of the Freemen did most of the
talking, occasionally standing, walk
ing around and waving his arms. Re
porters were kept about a mile away,
but the negotiations could be seen
clearly through binoculars and tele
photo lenses.
Freemen in a pickup truck parked
about 100 yards away watched the
meeting closely. Federal agents did
the same from another vantage point,
and a surveillance plane circled over
head.
When the meeting ended, the Free
men packed up the chairs and went
back to the ranch house on the 960
acrc farm. The negotiators drove past
about a dozen TV crews and reporters
without stopping to comment.
However tentative, it was the first
sign of a break in the standoff that
began with high tension March 25 when
agents arrested two Freemen leaders.
The tension has dulled into routine.
The Freemen are anti-government
activists who refuse to recognize the
government’s authority. They have
their own laws and courts based on
their interpretation of the Bible, the
U.S. Constitution and other documents.
FBI agents are trying to negotiate a
peaceful surrender with the remaining
fugitive Freemen, who are among 20
or so people holed up at the ranch
about 30 miles northwest of Jordan.
The FBI continued its laid-back
surveillance of the ranch. Some agents
staffed checkpoints at crossroads
around the Freemen’s 960-acre farm,
while others kept watch from hilltop
vantage points.
When the Freemen look out from
their barricaded farm, they see much
the same scene as they did before the
standoff began — miles and miles of
treeless plains, the wheat stubble pok
ing through a few inches of snow.
About half the 22 men, women and
children estimated to be at the Free
men compound are wanted on federal
charges including mail fraud, bank
fraud and conspiracy for threatening
public officials. The Freemen have
renounced all established authority,
set up their own government called
Justus Township, issued millions of
dollars in bogus checks, and threat
ened to kill those who stand in their
way.
They are thought to have stock
piled weapons at their compound, but
so far their aggression has been only
verbal, not physical.
The standoff began when under
cover federal agents arrested Freemen
leaders LeRoy Schweitzer and Daniel
Petersen Jr. A third Freeman, Richard
E. Clark, turned himself in to FBI
agents Saturday.
Netiraskan
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