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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 10, 1998)
Biff in IQQfi ww Livingston controls speaker race (t “The truth is, the vote is in. Bob Livingston is going to be our next speaker, and I'm withdrawing my name for that reason.” Christopher Cox House representative, California WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Bob Livingston, a pragmatic conservative from Louisiana, took command of die race to suc ceed House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Monday as his only rival dropped out and die second-ranking Republican leads* paid a cour - tesy call. “The truth is, the vote is in. Bob Livingston is going to he our next speaker and I’m with drawing my name for that reason,” said Rep. Christopher Cox of California, who was a for mal candidate fra less than 72 hours. Majority Leads* Dick Armey of Texas left die Capitol to visit Livingston in his office in a congressional building across the street, said his spokeswoman Michele Davis. “He went over there to congratulate him,” she said. Armey, too, has enough votes to ward off challenges, Davis said Even so, Rep. Jennifer Dunn ofWashington announced a bid to topple Armey, joining Rep. Steve Largent of Oklahoma in that race. “I am asking you to sup port me as a member who will serve as a fresh face for the party,” Dunn said in an e-mail sent to GOP lawmakers. Gingrich returned to the Capitol for the f rst time since Republicans lost seats in last week’s midterm elections, an event that led to his stun ning decision Friday to step down as speaker. The Georgian did not speak to reporters as he arrived. A handwritten sign was posted at the entrance to die suite where he presided over the Republican Revolution die past four years: “Office closed to tours.” Inside the Capitol, Gingrich was a lame duck, his power ebbing as Republicans jock eyed for position in die Congress that convenes in January. Influence was flowing to Livingston, 55, who chairs the Appropriations Committee and was elected last Tuesday to his 11th hill term. Cox announced his decision on ABCfe “Good Morning America,” then wrote a letter to fellow Republican lawmakers, saying Livingston “deserves our unanimous support as he takes on this daunting challenge.” The maneuvering continued in the House while in the Senate, any threat of a challenge to Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., disap peared during the day. Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the GOP whip, was sending a letter to colleagues saying he will seek a second term as second-in-command. Livingston, as a veteran of the House Appropriations Committee, has spent a career making deals with lawmakers of both parties to build support for legislation. While solidly con servative-he is firmly opposedto abortion, for example - he bristled at several points over the past few years when other conservatives want ed to use the spending bills that came out of his committee to carry controversial amendments dealing With social issues. Normally genial - on one recent day he lin gered to explain details of a diet that has enabled him to shed several pounds - Livingston also has occasional outbursts of temper. Past targets of his anger say it passes quickly. Hoover’s remarks on JFK case released ■ The FBI director condemned _ some agents’ missteps in keeping an eye on Oswald. WASHINGTON (AP) - After President Kennedy’s assassination, an angry J. Edgar Hoover scribbled stinging remarks in the mar gins of an FBI memo detailing how agents had failed - sometimes for “asinine” reasons, Hoover wrote - to keep a close eye on Lee Harvey Oswald in die months before the 1963 shooting. The FBI memo was among more than 400,000 Kennedy-related documents released Monday at die National Archives. It has long been known that the FBI mis handled its pre-assassination investigation of Oswald, who had been watched by agents since 1959 when he defected to the former Soviet Union. But archivists say this is die first time they’ve seen the Dec. 10,1963, memo containing Hoover’s curt, handwritten remarks aoout how the bureau bungled the case. The 11-page memo to Clyde Tolson, the No. 2 official at the FBI, was written by James Gale, who conducted an internal probe that revealed “a number of investigative and report ing delinquencies in the handling of the Oswald case.” The memo argues that based on Oswald’s defection and other details known to FBI agents, Oswald should have been placed on the FBI’s Security Index, a list of people consid ered threats to public officials or national secu rity The list is available to thC'Secret Service, which uses the information in its efforts to pro tect the president. FBI field personnel told Gale they did not think Oswald met the criteria for being on the list If Oswald had been on the list, law enforce ment officials may have been more aggressive in checking his status before Kennedy traveled to Dallas. “Certainly no one in full possession of all his faculties can claim Oswald didn’t fell with in this criteria,” Hoover wrote at die bottom of die memo. John Newman, a University of Maryland professor and former intelligence officer who has written a bookon Oswald, said Hoover was angry because FBI agents in Washington, Dallas, New Orleans and New York all had been following Oswald^ movements yet woe “flat on thek feet” in the weeks before the assassination. “Hoover is saying in earthy terms the obvi ous: How could they have been so incompe tent?” Newman said. “Hoover’s written remarks make clear die level of incompetence and embarrassment of the bureau^ handling of Lee Harvey Oswald,” Gale’s memo cites several FBI missteps in Dallas. FBI Agent James Hosty,who was assigned to Oswald in Dallas, said the bureau wanted to interview Oswald’s wife, Marina, but didn’t do it in March 1963 because Oswald had been “drinking to excess ancf (had) beat up (his) wife on several occasions.” Hosty said die Dallas bureau opted for a “60-day cooling-off period.” This is “certainly an asinine excuse,” Hoover wrote. After the cooling-off period, the FBI couldn’t find Oswald or his wife. The pair sur faced a few months later in New Orleans. In mid-December 1963, Hoover quietly censured and placed on probation more than a dozen agents, including Hosty, for shortcom ings in handling the Oswald case, (hi his book on Hoover, author Curt Gentry wrote that in obtaining his personnel file years later, “Hosty discovered thm his answers to Inspector Galefe questions had been falsified.”) Gale also suggested die bureau change die criteria for placing an individual on the Security Index “rather than take the position that all of these (FBI) employees were mistak en in their judgment” Hoover disagreed again, writing: “They were worse than mistaken.” (^Dcm^^velniqtimetoi^uildweapcHis WASHINGTON (AP) - Iraq could rebuild its chemical and biological arsenals if international arms inspections ceased, the CIA said Monday as foe Clinton administration prepared options on the latest standoff. Iraq has “the capability to quickly resurrect weapons of mass destruction production absent U.N. sanctions,” the CIA reported to lawmakers. Ten days ago, Saddam Hussein declared a halt to coop eration with the U.N. Special Commission that searches for chemical and biological weapons. President Clinton’s national security team has developed options for him that include air strikes. At the State Department, spokesman James Rubin sought to dispel suggestions that the United States was alone in its effort to isolate and punish Iraq for noncompliance with international arms inspectors. “The blame of the whole world is resting clearly and squarely on the doorstepoflraq and the shoulders of Saddam Hussein,” Rubin said. “Wfe don’t feel lonely.” It appeared that only Britain was ready to join the United States in a threat of force against Iraq. British Defense Secretary George Robertsonwarned during avisitto Kuwait on Monday that the international community Is patience was “draining away.” Adams asks Blair to continue pressure LONDON ( AP) - Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams implored British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday to break the impasse in Northern Ireland peacemaking by putting pressure on the Narthb Protestant leaders. Protestant leader David Trimble is refusing to form a new administration for Northern Ireland that includes Adams’ Irish Republican Army-allied party unless the IRA starts disarming April’s historic accord - supported by both Trimble’s ’ Ulster Unionist Party and Sim I&i- envisioned forming a new coalition government by last month and securing IRA disarmament by mid-2000. TrimWe insists the IRA needs to show its July 1997 truce is sincere by starting to disarm, or Sinn Fein won’t be eligi ble to help govern the divided province. | But Adams asserted that Aprils accord doesn’t require the IRA to disarm, and that the truce should be sufFdent “proof of tee goodwill of tee IRA" Blair made no comment after the meeting. Britons: Queen should remain on timme LONDON (AP) - Most Britons do not think Queen Elizabeth II should abdicate the throne to allow ha- oldest , son, Prince Charles, to become king, according totrpoll released Monday. A poll commissioned for tee Daily Mail tabloid and a ] British television station found teat 67 percent believe tee queen should remain the monarch for the rest of her life, the paper said The prince, who celebrates his 50th birthday on Saturday, recently has been at tee center of some controver- ! sy. A television documentary that aired Sunday quoted an uimamed “senior royal aide’’as claiming that Prince Charles would be “privately delighted” if his mother; 72, abdicated | The prince issued a strong denial on Friday, following publicity about tee London Weekend Television program. The producers have said they stand by their report • i ■ v*. *' : ; ; S:"*** ,v ';V / ’*s - German Jews remember Kristallnacht BERLIN (AP) - With a “march of silence,” Germany's Jewish community marked the 60th anniversary Monday of Kristallnacht - die “Night of Broken Glass” - when Nazi storm troopers burned and ransacked Jewish business es and temples. Germany’s Jewish community, which numbered 530,000 before the Nazis took power, now stands at around 70,000 and is growing. Neo-Nazi incidents are on the rise, and Jewish leaders are more determined than ever that the Holocaust not be for gotten-fighting what they see as atrend toward emphasizing Germany’s future at the expense of remembering its past Politicians, including Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, religious leaders and members of the Jewish community gathered for anniversary speeches in a cavernous, mosaic-covered Berlin syn » agogue where windows were shattered during the Kristallnacht violence that ' ■» ' f . M-; ' presaged die Holocaust They discussed how to remember die past while moving Germany into the 21st century and its seat of government back to Berlin. Underscoring all the speeches was die theme that Gomans still struggle for the right way to pre serve the honors of the Holocaust as a lesson for future generations. . Ignatz Bubis, the leader of Germany’s Jews, lambasted what he calls an “intellectual nationalism” rep resented in comments by a prize-win ning German author who says repeated media references to Nazi atrocities are designed to perpetuate German guilt The Kristallnacht anniversary has particular significance this year; which saw the election of politicians too young to have memories ofWorld War IL The generational change, coupled with the move to Berlin and foe new gov ernment’s emphasis on a forward-look ing Germany, has sparked concern that there is a desire to return to a “normal” Germany unburdened by foe Holocaust ‘Tor me, normality isjfcp be a Jew and to be able to live in Germany again,” Bubis said. “‘Normality’ cannot mean that we supplant memory and live with a new anti-Semitism and new racism.” Berlin^ Jewish community held its first “march of silence” Monday in remembrance of Kristallnacht Some v 2,000 to 3,000 people formed a sea of umbrellas on a dark, drizzly afternoon. A march also was held in Duesseldorf, along with ceremonies in Buchenwald, Frankfort, Hamburg and Munich. They marked the “Night of Broken Glass,” when Nazis rounded up Jews j and burned and broke windows in syna gogues and Jewish businesses. When the rampage ended Nov. 10, more than 1,300 synagogues were destroyed and more than 30,000 Jews had been sent to concentration camps. Several hundred people died.
