TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=94TT0271> <title> Mar. 14, 1994: Chronicles:The Week </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1994 Mar. 14, 1994 How Man Began </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> CHRONICLES, Page 21 THE WEEK:FEBRUARY 27 - MARCH 5 </hdr> <body> NATION A New Whitewater Torrent The Whitewater affair took its first high-profile Administration victim on Saturday when White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum tendered his resignation to Bill Clinton. Nussbaum was one of nine Clinton aides and Treasury Department officials upon whom the FBI served subpoenas at the behest of Whitewater special counsel Robert Fiske. Others included Harold Ickes, deputy chief of staff, and Margaret Williams, chief of staff for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The subpoenas followed damaging revelations of briefings between Treasury officials knowledgeable about a federal investigation of the Clintons' role in the Whitewater scandal and White House aides. The departure of Nussbaum, previously criticized for his involvement in the White House travel-office fiasco and the investigation into the death of deputy counsel Vincent Foster, is unlikely to appease Republicans, who have been pressing yet harder for congressional Whitewater hearings. And a Rose Law Firm Thorn The Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas--where Mrs. Clinton used to ply her trade--generated more potentially embarrassing news for the President. Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell acknowledged that the firm had questioned him about his billing practices while he was a lawyer there, but he denied any improprieties. There were also reports that documents had been taken and shredded from the files of Vincent Foster, the former Rose and White House lawyer whose suicide is under investigation. The firm denied that any Foster files were destroyed. A Trade Center Guilty Verdict After five months of trial, hundreds of witnesses and less than a week of deliberations, a jury convicted all four defendants on all counts in the World Trade Center bombing case. "Injustice!" shouted the lead defendant, Mohammed Salameh, who like the others could be sentenced to life in prison. Terror on the Brooklyn Bridge Raising fears of more Middle East-related violence in the U.S., a gunman in a trailing car opened fire on a van carrying young Hasidic Jews across New York City's Brooklyn Bridge, wounding four of the riders, two critically (one was left brain-dead). An intensive manhunt yielded a Lebanese suspect, two alleged accomplices and a cache of weapons. The Evidence Against Ames Federal prosecutors unveiled some of the evidence collected against accused CIA mole Aldrich Ames and his wife. Among the items: nine pages of instructions from the Soviets, including an entry indicating that Ames unmasked an East European security officer; and an accounting statement from Moscow noting that by 1989 some $2.7 million--more than previously thought--had already been appropriated to Ames for his work. A Balanced-Budget No Failing to muster the required two-thirds majority by a mere four votes, the Senate rejected the latest incarnation of a balanced-budget constitutional amendment, effectively killing the proposal for yet another year. Mitchell Retires In a surprise decision, Senate majority leader George Mitchell of Maine announced that he would not seek re-election this year, complicating the Democrats' chances of maintaining control of the Senate and the President's ability to push through his programs. Though Mitchell gave no reason for leaving, he has been mentioned as a contender for baseball commissioner. Packwood Strikes Out Senator Bob Packwood lost the battle to keep his diaries secret when Chief Justice William Rehnquist rejected his plea to delay transferring the records to the Senate ethics committee pending the outcome of his court appeal. Bernardin Cleared Steven Cook dropped his $10 million sexual-abuse lawsuit against Chicago's Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, admitting that his hypnotically retrieved memories of sexual misconduct by Bernardin in the mid-1970s were "unreliable." Where Was Shawn Eckardt? Skater Tonya Harding reported being assaulted and bruised by a man last Thursday night as she was heading through a park toward the Beaverton, Oregon, apartment where she has been staying with friends. Police are searching for the attacker. WORLD NATO 4, Serbs 0 U.S. F-16 fighters shot down four Serbian jets violating a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Bosnia; two other jets escaped. The incident, the first offensive in NATO's 45-year history, also marked the first time the West has fired shots in Bosnia. Two Moves Toward Peace Separate diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and Russia may signal the beginning of the end of the 23-month-old war in Bosnia. Negotiators in Washington reached a preliminary agreement to join the Muslim- and Croat-controlled areas of Bosnia in a Switzerland-like federation carved out of the 33% of Bosnia not controlled by the Serbs. The Bosnian Serbs agreed to allow relief flights to land at the besieged Muslim-held airport in Tuzla in northeastern Bosnia after Russia said it would send peacekeeping troops to monitor the flights. Massacre's Aftermath In moves denounced by the P.L.O. as merely "cosmetic," Israel vowed to crack down on extremist Jewish settlers in the occupied territories (but arrested only a handful) and released nearly 1,000 Palestinian detainees. Meanwhile, during rioting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the Hebron mosque massacre, Israeli soldiers killed at least eight Palestinians and wounded dozens of others. Mexico Accedes to Rebels The Mexican government reached a tentative accord with Indian peasant rebels on major reforms in southern Chiapas state. The government promised to redistribute illegal large landholdings to poor peasants, begin a huge public works program in Chiapas and further outlaw discrimination against Indians. Buthelezi Agrees to Talk After months of political wrangling and escalating violence, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said his party has provisionally registered for South Africa's April 26-28 elections. In return, African National Congress president Nelson Mandela agreed to submit to international arbitration the two parties' deep differences over the country's constitution. E.U. Opens Way for New 3 The European Union reached agreements with Austria, Sweden and Finland on terms for membership beginning in 1995. Talks with Norway continue. Each of the four countries must now hold a national referendum on E.U. membership. Singapore's Severe Sentence A Singaporean judge sentenced an 18-year-old American student at a Singapore high school to be beaten with a rattan cane, spend four months in jail and pay a $2,230 fine--all for spraypainting cars and other acts of vandalism. BUSINESS Great Leap Forward The U.S. government announced that the country's gross domestic product surged ahead at a robust 7.5% annual rate in the final quarter of 1993. This marks the economy's strongest performance in nearly a decade. Commerce Department officials attributed the good news to a jump in U.S. exports, which rose by $2 billion in December. In other good news, the nation's unemployment rate dropped a surprising two-tenths of a percent in February, in spite of frigid weather in the Midwest and Northeast. Early Trade Skirmish President Clinton revived a tough provision of U.S. trade law in an attempt to get Japan to trim its $59 billion trade surplus. The measure, the so-called Super 301, creates a "hit list" of countries deemed to be unfair traders and threatens punitive tariffs of up to 100%. Said Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa: "We would like to deal with this matter calmly." What's Good for Chrysler... As part of a $1.8 billion plan to boost production of its popular Jeep Cherokees, minivans and trucks, Chrysler Corp. will hire 6,000 new workers. The company's truck and car sales jumped 19.5% last year. SCIENCE Frog Mystery Solved? For years scientists have puzzled over the rapid disappearance of frogs around the world. Last week a team of researchers from Oregon State University offered a possible explanation: the thinning of the ozone layer. The researchers argue that increased ultraviolet B radiation may be killing amphibian eggs before they hatch into tadpoles. By Christopher John Farley, Eugene Linden, Lina Lofaro, Michael Quinn, Jeffery C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders, Sidney Urquhart DISPATCHES A Sniper's Tale By Edward Barnes/In Sarajevo From his perch overlooking Sarajevo's downtown, a Bosnian Serb sniper named Pipo watches people strolling the streets he thinks of as his. He likes to picture the streets the way they were before the cease-fire two weeks ago: fearful, deserted. "Everyone likes peace except me," he says. "I like the war." Pipo claims his bullets have felled 325 people. He has become comfortable in war, and knows that peace will bring him uncertainty--or worse. "I don't think we snipers will survive the peace," he says. "We have killed too many, and it is a small country. Not only will there be the revenge of the families, but our own army will not want us around. We know too much. We did too much." He claims that other snipers have gone to South Africa, where "they are hiring men like us." At 25, the former javelin thrower, a hulking 6 ft. 3 in., fears that his life is already lost. Late one night in his two-bedroom apartment--strewn with war booty, weapons and the ransacked belongings of the previous tenants, a displaced Muslim family--he wrestles with the idea of peace. "All I know how to do is kill," he says. "I am not sure I am normal anymore. I can talk to people, but if someone pushes me, I will kill them...In the beginning I was able to put my fear aside, and it was good. Then with the killings I was able to put my emotions aside, and it was good. But now they are gone." Before the war, Pipo and a Muslim were partners in a restaurant. He joined the Bosnian Serb army but did not begin to hate until, he says, his mother was jailed and beaten by Muslims. "When she got out she wouldn't talk about it. That's when I picked up a gun and began shooting Muslims. I hate them all." His anger and keen marksmanship drew him to a sniper unit. An officer taught Pipo a useful mental trick for his new line of work: "Don't let the faces follow you." No, he says, not one of the faces he held in his sights was a civilian. But he makes the denial with a flat voice, eyes downcast. Any admission of firing at civilians could get him arrested and charged with a war crime. "I have no feelings for what I do," he says. "I went to see my mother in Belgrade, and she hugged me and I felt nothing." Catching the irony--that all the killing has been done to avenge a mother he can no longer feel for--he struggles to explain: "It is our choice to go to hell...I have no life anymore. I go from day to day, but nothing means anything. I don't want a wife and children. I don't want to think. I don't want..." His hand sweeps the room; the chaotic debris indicates that he connects to very little. A wall calendar is still open to October 1992--the month the apartment's original inhabitants fled. Their delicate demitasse cups lie shattered under a carelessly tossed antitank missile. Pipo asks a visitor if a note and some cigarettes could be taken to someone still in Sarajevo. He confides that his friend is a Muslim and a sniper on the other side. "Would you kill him if you got him in your sights?" he is asked. "Why not?" he replies. INSIDE WASHINGTON HUD to Settle Discrimination Suits Housing and Urban Development head HENRY CISNEROS, like Department of Energy chief Hazel O'Leary, is owning up to the alleged sins of past Administrations. hud sources say he plans to settle 17 discrimination lawsuits and to concede that for almost two decades HUD's housing projects promoted racial segregation by being built almost exclusively in low-income, minority areas. The first seven settlements will cost about $75 million; instead of receiving cash, the projects will be supplied with additional guards and washing machines. WINNERS & LOSERS WINNERS CARDINAL BERNARDIN He's cleared of abuse charges after accuser admits faulty memory BARBRA STREISAND Her garage sale at Christie's rings up an evergreen $5.8 million LORENA BOBBITT She's free and officially sane--next stop: Hollywood LOSERS DARRYL STRAWBERRY Slugger is in IRS trouble for not reporting autograph fees STANLEY R. JAFFE Paramount studio head will be first to roll in the Viacom era THE WHITE HOUSE CHEF Not hot on haute, down-home Clintons bid him adieu THE MORNING LINE Left-wing New York City attorney William Kunstler is the inevitable legal champion of some of the most despised suspects_cop killers, assassins, terrorists. So what is the likelihood that he will eventually take on the case of Rashid Baz, the man arrested for last week's Brooklyn Bridge shootings? Time asked some top criminal-defense lawyers to post the odds: LAWYER TOP CLIENT COMMENT Alan Dershowitz: Claus von Bulow "The chances are very good." Dick DeGuerin: David Koresh "Pretty good." Charles Stillman: Clark Clifford "Better than even." "MY NAME IS TOM HARKIN, AND I'M A SPENDAHOLIC" The 10 least-frugal Senators* (as ranked by the nonpartisan Concord Coalition) who also had the audacity--or was it courage?--to vote for one of two competing balanced-budget amendments to the Constitution: 1 Tom Harkin (D.-Iowa) 2 John Breaux (D.-Louisiana) 3 Howell Heflin (D.-Alabama) 4 James Jeffords (R.-Vermont) 5 Carol Moseley-Braun (D.-Illinois) 6 Dave Durenberger (R.-Minnesota) 7 Joseph Biden (D.-Delaware) 8 Richard Bryan (D.-Nevada) 9 Harry Reid (D.-Nevada)** 10 Paul Simon (D.-Illinois)** * The Senators were graded according to their votes last year on the 20 bills that most shaped the overall dimensions of last year's budget. ** Reid and Simon were the leading Democratic sponsors of the two competing bills. INFORMED SOURCES Is Iran Up to Its Old Tricks? Paris--Iran, which has sought to project a more moderate image, is actually reaffirming its ties with terrorist organizations worldwide. Western intelligence sources say Iran has been strengthening its relations with such groups as the Japanese Red Army, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. Sources also say representatives of several international terrorist groups met a few weeks ago in Tehran with high-ranking Iranian intelligence officials. High on the agenda: disruption of the Middle East peace process. Immigration Affects the License-Plate Industry Washington--U.S. workers often gripe that illegal aliens are taking their jobs--and now that complaint is being made by convicts. Federal Prison Industries, a Justice Department unit that employs 16,000 federal prisoners (some make furniture for $1 an hour), told TIME that 4,500 of its workers--about 28%--are aliens. Inmates believe that many, if not most, are in this country illegally. Federal law prohibits the "knowing" employment of such workers, but a lawyer for FPI says it doesn't ask inmates if they're in the U.S. illegally. I'd Gladly Pay You Tuesday for an F-15 Today Washington--Because of reduced oil prices and Gulf War debt, Saudi Arabia is so strapped for cash that it barely met the deadline for its latest $375 million payment on its U.S. weapons contracts. The Saudis usually pay in full two weeks in advance; this time they initially sent a check that was too small--$50 million--and made out to the wrong payee. The rest of the money finally arrived 96 hours before the Pentagon would have been forced to start ordering armsmakers to shut down assembly lines. </body> </article> </text>