TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=94TT0343> <title> Apr. 04, 1994: Chronicles:The Week </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1994 Apr. 04, 1994 Deep Water </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> CHRONICLES, Page 12 THE WEEK:MARCH 20-26 </hdr> <body> NATION Clinton's Whitewater Offensive In a bold attempt to contain the damage from the Whitewater affair, President Clinton went on the offensive at a nationally televised news conference to state that while he intended to cooperate "fully" with the special counsel and any congressional investigation, he also intended to stay "preoccupied with the business we were sent here to do for the American people." Responding to fresh allegations of wrongdoing--leveled on the floor of the House by Republican Jim Leach--the President categorically denied having tried to suppress a federal investigation of the S&L at the center of the Whitewater affair. To underline his contention that he had done nothing wrong in the real estate venture, the President publicly released his tax returns for 1977, 1978 and 1979. Meanwhile... The Whitewater grand jury in Washington continued to hear testimony from Administration officials. And the special counsel obtained cooperation, as part of a plea bargain on non-Whitewater fraud charges, from an Arkansas businessman and former judge who says Clinton pressured him to make questionable loans. The President denies this accusation too. And Then... The White House lawyer responsible for screening Administration job applicants fell victim to his own "Zoe Baird problem." William Kennedy III--yet another of Hillary Rodham Clinton's beleaguered former law partners--was reassigned following the revelation that he had only belatedly paid 1991 and 1992 Social Security taxes for his family's nanny. Closing In on Smokers The FDA and now the Labor Department are on the offensive. Testifying before Congress, FDA commissioner David Kessler said his agency was considering regulating tobacco as a drug. Labor Secretary Robert Reich moved to prohibit smoking in all workplaces, including factories, office buildings, restaurants and schools. Meanwhile Philip Morris, the nation's largest cigarette manufacturer, laid a whopping $10 billion libel suit on ABC television for reporting that cigarette makers deliberately manipulate nicotine levels in cigarettes in order to keep smokers hooked. Health Reform: A Qualified Yes By a 6-to-5 vote, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health passed a watered-down version of the President's health-care plan, one that would provide a more modest benefits package but still guarantee universal coverage and require employers to pay for most of their workers' insurance. Appropriations Spurt? Choosing an aggressive liberal activist, House Democrats voted Wisconsin's David Obey as the new head of the powerful Appropriations Committee. Pollard Stays Behind Bars On the recommendation of the CIA and the Defense and Justice departments, President Clinton denied clemency to convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, whose life sentence for passing top-secret documents to Israel had been targeted as excessive by some Jewish groups and members of Congress. Rodney King, Part III Rodney King's civil suit against Los Angeles got under way with the battered motorist seeking $9 million in damages from the city. King rejected the city's offer of a $1.25 million settlement. Two Deadly Accidents An Air Force F-16D fighter jet collided with a C-130 cargo plane as both were attempting to land at North Carolina's Pope Air Force Base, raining down flaming debris that killed 23 Army paratroopers and injured scores of others. In Edison, New Jersey, an underground natural-gas pipeline exploded in a fierce fireball, carving out a huge crater and destroying eight apartment buildings. Miraculously, only one person died--indirectly, of a heart attack. Breast-Implant Accord In a record settlement that must still be approved by a federal judge, Dow Corning, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Baxter Healthcare--makers of silicone breast implants--agreed to pay some $4 billion over 30 years to the thousands of women who claim that they were made sick by the implants. Antiabortionist Conviction After deliberating for only about an hour, a Kansas jury convicted fervent antiabortion activist Rachelle Shannon of attempting to murder Dr. George Tiller last summer. Shannon admitted shooting the doctor and testified that she also considered bombing his Wichita abortion clinic. Keeping the U.S. Door Open On the West Coast, a federal immigration judge dropped deportation proceedings against a Nigerian woman illegally in the U.S. in order to spare her two small daughters from an African ritual of genital mutilation. The judge called the procedure "cruel, painful and dangerous." And immigration officials granted asylum to a gay man from Mexico based on his claim of persecution back home for his sexual orientation. The Evidence Against Tonya The Oregon grand jury investigating the January attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan announced its long-awaited findings: Yes, it alleged, rival Tonya Harding was in on the plot from the outset. However, Harding's previous plea bargain, on charges of conspiring to hinder prosecution of the attack, spared her from any further charges. WORLD Mexican Candidate Killed Luis Donaldo Colosio, who was widely expected to win the Mexican presidency in August elections, was shot and killed while campaigning in Tijuana. Police arrested a suspect at the scene, who later confessed; the assassination was apparently not linked to the peasant uprising in Chiapas state that began in January. Ernesto Zedillo, Colosio's campaign manager, is now considered one of the leading contenders to replace Colosio as the candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (P.R.I.), as is the P.R.I. chief, Fernando Ortiz Arana. Moving Closer to Talking Negotiators from the P.L.O., Israel and the U.S. met to try to devise a way to resume the formal Palestinian-Israeli peace talks halted by the Hebron mosque massacre. One major sticking point was resolved when Israel agreed to allow armed international observers and Palestinian police in Hebron. Still Fighting Five Palestinians--including a pregnant woman--were killed during an Israeli army raid on a suspected Palestinian militant hideout in Hebron. Soldiers fired tens of thousands of rounds and dozens of antitank rockets in the 19-hour gun battle, heightening tensions in the already inflamed city. Israeli military censors blocked news reports of the fire fight for nearly a day, and ensuing rioting throughout the occupied territories left dozens wounded. The army later lifted a curfew on the city's Arab residents, which had been in effect since the Feb. 25 mosque massacre. North Korean Warnings of War The U.S. dispatched Patriot antimissile batteries to South Korea after North Korea denied access to a nuclear facility to international inspectors. Washington will also resume joint military exercises with South Korea, and is considering pushing for economic sanctions against North Korea, which called the situation "a very dangerous brink of war" and threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire." Sarajevo Siege Cracks a Little A few hundred people trickled across once dangerous front lines in Sarajevo as new routes were opened--under severe restrictions--into and out of government-controlled parts of the Bosnian capital. The city has been under siege by Bosnian Serb forces for almost two years (since April 6, 1992). Meanwhile, Bosnian Serbs formally rejected a Muslim-Croat federation, saying they wanted to link their territory to a "Greater Serbia." S. Africa Takes Over Homeland The head of the apartheid "homeland'' of Ciskei stepped down, allowing the South African transitional government to take over until all-race elections are held nationwide April 26-28. Tension remained high in the KwaZulu "homeland," stronghold of Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, whose Inkatha party is boycotting the election. U.S. Ends Somalia Mission "Operation Restore Hope," the U.S. military mission to Somalia, ended 16 months after it began, with the evacuation of the last Marines. In Nairobi, meanwhile, Somalia's two most powerful warlords, Mohammed Farrah Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohammed, signed a peace pact to end three years of civil war and to set up a new government. Salvadoran Rightist Party Wins The rightist Nationalist Republican Alliance party won El Salvador's first elections following a 12-year civil war. A run-off election to be held April 24 will choose the country's President. BUSINESS Rate Hike The Federal Reserve voted to raise short-term interest rates one-quarter of a percentage point, to 3 1/2%. The move, the second in two months, caused six major banks to bump up their prime lending rates to 6 1/4%. Analysts said the overall impact on the economy would be moderate. Hoffa Rolls Over...Somewhere Reformist Teamsters president Ron Carey dispatched agents to the union's four U.S. regional headquarters to audit their books, branding the offices "fertile grounds for corruption and Mob influence." The extraordinary move aimed at the union's Old Guard is but the first step in closing down the offices altogether and improving the union's finances, said Carey. SCIENCE Tigers: More Heat on Taiwan The governing board of CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, met in Geneva to consider the plight of the tiger, which is fast becoming extinct in the wild as the animals are killed to supply Asian demand for tiger-based potions and medicines. The CITES committee condemned Taiwan for failing to take even minimal steps to control its illegal trade in tiger parts. But to the dismay of conservationists, the committee muted its criticism of China, another mainstay of the tiger trade. Now the Clinton Administration must decide whether it will for the first time in history impose trade sanctions on another country for actions that threaten an endangered species. By Christopher John Farley, Eugene Linden, Lina Lofaro, Lawrence Mondi, Michael Quinn, Jeffery C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders and Sidney Urquhart Why We Fight Art People for the American Way is releasing a study this week of 204 "challenges to artistic free expression" during 1992-93. These include attempts to remove paintings from exhibitions, stop productions of plays, revoke arts funding and the like. Here is a partial breakdown of the cataloged objections (categories may overlap): -- Nudity and/or sexual content 50% -- Offensive/inappropriate political content 31% -- Antireligious content 16% -- Homosexual content 13% -- Racist/ethnically insensitive content 7% -- Sexually harassing content 6% -- Aesthetically unpleasing/ugly 1.5% INFORMED SOURCES Fashion You Won't See on Paris Runways WASHINGTON--The U.S. Army has been so busy lately in trouble spots around the world that it has come up with reversible battle fatigues so soldiers can blend in with either desert or woodland settings. One side is sandy brown; the other is traditional camouflage green. The two-in-one uniforms could save the government money. And, says a source, "we won't be embarrassed like we were in the Gulf War, when some of our paratroopers had to jump into the desert in dark green cammies." National Bioethics Commission in the Works WASHINGTON--Senators EDWARD KENNEDY and MARK HATFIELD are working on legislation that would create a National Bioethics Commission. The 11-person panel would investigate controversial research such as embryo cloning and advise the Department of Health and Human Services on whether studies should be changed, blocked or left alone. In the past such proposals have bogged down in partisan politics, but a Hatfield aide says, "The [recent] radiation-research disclosures created a lot of political will to do this. It's on a pretty fast track." The Senators will submit their bill in about two weeks. The Multitudinous Rs Early last Saturday morning, the Senate finally approved the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which attempts to elucidate a set of nationwide educational standards. Below are some of the abilities Congress--a body known for both its inability to balance budgets and its occasional eagerness to disregard the accumulated wisdom of the past--thinks high school graduates ought to have in math, history and a variety of other subjects. Arts -- Know dances and dancers prior to the 20th century -- Identify historical sources of American musical theater -- Identify famous musicians Math -- Know how to use a calculator -- Interpret tables, charts, graphs Civics and Government -- Identify the Bill of Rights, Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence -- Explain the difference between a citizen and an alien -- Know the function of the U.N., NATO, Amnesty International Geography -- Know how to use an atlas, a map, a globe -- Explain how war, famine and disease play significant roles in human migration Science -- Know what matter is -- Understand reproduction and heredity -- Define a cell English -- Write clearly -- Know how to use a thesaurus History -- Develop a position as to whether the Civil War was avoidable -- Identify Woodrow Wilson ZHIRINOVSKY BEAT Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Russia's top ultranationalist, protected a very private part of himself last week--and issued a syntactically garbled threat to journalists: Monday: Claimed in an interview with David Frost that Bill Clinton "would like to be the one ruler in the world" and said, "without dictatorship you could not rule my country"...Tuesday: Warned a Russian reporter, "Every day you slander the country, and then you are surprised that journalists go missing. If you provoke such incidents, they will certainly kill you." Zhirinovsky did not clarify whom he meant by "they"...Wednesday: Challenged by a Russian newsman to prove that he is uncircumcised, he blushed, saying, "No, no, I can't show, but you can visit my doctors, and they know all my organism by observation, and they can all testify that there is no circumcision. Or, I am ready to show a commission of objective doctors from Israel and the U.S."...Friday: Richard Nixon, just back from Moscow, described Zhirinovsky as "shrewd" and a "holy fool." DISPATCHES A Lunch with France's James Bond By Thomas Sancton/In Paris In the wood-paneled dining room of Paris' exclusive Travellers club, the exuberant Count Alexandre de Marenches stands out from the sedate, pinstripe luncheon crowd. At 6 ft. 3 in. and 220 lbs., he would stand out almost anywhere. That can be a problem for a man who has spent much of his career in the low-profile netherworld of international espionage. But today, the former head of French intelligence feels like telling tales out of school. There was no need for Marenches to introduce himself. His resume is intertwined with the history of France: scion of a noble family that traces its roots back to the 12th century, he fought in North Africa and Italy during World War II and served as liaison officer between De Gaulle and Eisenhower. In 1970 Georges Pompidou named him director of France's version of the CIA, the Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionnage, where he remained until 1981. At 72, with his SDECE years well behind him, Marenches doesn't mind sharing a few stories over a two-hour lunch of foie gras and braised veal. "Shortly after your hostages were taken in Tehran in 1979," he recalls, "the Americans asked my advice. I told them, `When dealing with rug merchants, you need something to trade.' " The count's modest proposal: kidnap the Ayatullah Khomeini and exchange him for the 53 Americans. "After weeks of reconnaissance, my people came up with a detailed plan to land a helicopter near Khomeini's residence, neutralize his guards and whisk him away. The CIA loved the idea, but Jimmy Carter nixed it. He said, `We just can't do this to an old bishop.' " Marenches got on better with Ronald Reagan--"no intellectual," he avers, "but a good man." During an Oval Office chat in 1981, the count suggested a rather farfetched plan he called "Operation Mosquito" to undermine Soviet morale in Afghanistan--"so named because one tiny mosquito can drive a bear crazy." The plan consisted of smuggling into Afghanistan hard drugs, Russian-language Bibles and forged copies of the Soviet army newspaper full of subversive articles--"Disobey orders, shoot your officers in the back, that sort of thing." By Marenches's account, Reagan and CIA director William Casey approved the project, and Marenches agreed to carry it out. "When I had everything set up, I went back to Casey and said, `Bill, can you assure me that there won't be any leaks and that my photo won't wind up in the Washington Post?' He said, `Alex, I can't guarantee that.' So I told him, `The deal's off.' " Like many Western governments, France was curious about the exact state of Leonid Brezhnev's health during his final years. Marenches found an ingenious way to get information. "He was staying at the Hotel d'Angleterre in Copenhagen during a state visit," the count recalls. "Our people rented the suite under his and dismantled all the plumbing. They intercepted his toilet flushings and sent the samples to Paris for analysis." This unpleasant bit of trade craft revealed that Brezhnev, a vodka lover, had suffered severe liver damage. "The old boy didn't last long after that," says the count, raising a magnanimous glass of mineral water to the memory of a former nemesis. HEALTH REPORT THE GOOD NEWS -- Scientists have the best evidence yet that immunotherapy- using the body's immune system to fight disease--is an effective way to treat certain cancers. After giving the genetically engineered drug Interleukin 2 in high doses to 283 patients with spreading kidney or skin cancer, researchers found that a significant number stayed in remission for periods from seven to 91 months. -- Nicotine, the drug that causes addiction in cigarette smokers, may improve the condition of people who suffer from ulcerative colitis. Half the patients in a new study saw their symptoms abate after receiving nicotine through skin patches. THE BAD NEWS -- The shortage of primary-care physicians is not likely to improve soon. In a survey of 688 medical students, just 27% chose primary care (pediatrics, internal medicine, family practice) as a career path. Nearly half said they would switch if they were offered incentives--an increase in salary, for example. Only one-third of U.S. doctors work in primary care, short of the 50% sought by experts. -- Here's a fresh concern: lead spewed into the skies above Europe by ancient silver smelters as far back as 2,600 years ago. The toxic by-product has been discovered in lake sediment in Sweden; the lead traces could still cause poisoning. Sources-GOOD: Journal of the American Medical Association; New England Journal of Medicine; A.P. BAD: Journal of the American Medical Association; Nature; A.P. Tips for Teens "I prostituted myself, lied to my parents and friends, shot a woman and gave up what could have been some of the best years of my life--all in the name of `love'...Don't let this happen to you."--Amy Fisher, writing in Mouth2Mouth THE ABSOLUTELY LAST OSCAR PIECE YOU HAVE TO READ IN 1994 AIR TIE ALERT. Of 24 male performers who either presented or won awards at last week's Academy Awards ceremony, seven--29%--didn't wear ties. Two recently fashionable items were also not in great evidence on stage: red ribbons and faux-brainy eyewear. MEMENTO WE'D LEAST LIKE TO SEE. "If I had known how famous he was going to be, I'd have had my uterus bronzed."--Leah Adler, on her famous son Steven Spielberg BEST PERFORMANCE IN ARMANI AND A HEADSET. How did the agents do? Of the seven winners in the acting, writing and directing categories, CAA represents three (Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Jane Campion), ICM two (Holly Hunter and Tommy Lee Jones), and the little-known Harold Greene Agency one (Schindler's List screenwriter Steven Zaillian). Eleven-year-old Anna Paquin is represented by the even-less-known Double Happy agency of New Zealand. The William Morris Agency was shut out. BEST POSSIBLY UNINTENTIONAL DISPLAY OF BAD TASTE. As the winner for Best Documentary Short wound up a heartfelt speech on the horrors of spousal abuse (the subject of her film), the show's telecast director cut to a reaction shot of actor Laurence Fishburne--nominated as Best Actor for playing wife beater Ike Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It. ROBO SWEETHEART. Was going to the Oscars in her new role as a Revlon spokeswoman the corniest thing Nancy Kerrigan had ever done? "This is the most glamorous night," she corrected. MILESTONES DIED. LEWIS GRIZZARD, 47, humorist; from complications following heart surgery; in Atlanta. "A Faulkner for just plain folks" was how one publisher characterized Grizzard, who made hay of everyday angst and irritation in a syndicated column and 14 books--not to mention on speaking tours and sundry media gigs. The titles of Grizzard's best-known works sum up his puckish view of the world, as filtered through his experiences as a multimarried Southern male child of the '50s: Elvis Is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself and My Daddy Was a Pistol and I'm a Son of a Gun. DIED. DONALD SWANN, 70, composer and performer; of cancer; in London. Quieter half of the British comedy duo Flanders and Swann, Swann wrote the eclectic music for Michael Flanders' gently satirical lyrics in a pair of revues, At the Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat. They toured throughout the '60s, with Flanders providing dry commentary and lead vocals and Swann at the keyboard, adding his thin but enthusiastic tenor to such whimsy as The Gasman Cometh, Song of Reproduction (a jab at stereo enthusiasts) and The Hippopotamus Song, an ode to "mud, mud, glorious mud" that somehow became a plea for international peace, complete with a verse in Russian delivered by Swann. DIED. GIULIETTA MASINA, 73, international film star; of cancer; in Rome. The wife of Federico Fellini, who died in October, Masina proved to be the most affecting interpreter of her husband's work. The round-faced, expressive-eyed actress got her first break in a 1942 radio play written by Fellini, who married her the next year. She went on to star in a string of Fellini masterpieces--most famously La Strada (1954), the Oscar-winning movie that featured Masina as the waifish victim of circus strongman Anthony Quinn, and Nights of Cabiria (1957), arguably the best work of both Masina and Fellini--her role as a prostitute betrayed by fate and love melded a Chaplinesque sense of physical comedy with a profoundly moving portrait of the human capacity to triumph simply by enduring. Other works with her husband included Juliet of the Spirits (1965) and her 1985 cinema swan song Ginger and Fred, which co-starred Marcello Mastroianni. DIED. MACDONALD CAREY, 81, actor; in Beverly Hills, California. The casually masculine Carey was a dependable lead in Golden Age Hollywood, where he appeared in more than 50 films, including Alfred Hitchcock's small-town nail biter Shadow of a Doubt (1943), which featured Carey as a G-man on the trail of amiable psychopath Joseph Cotten. Carey is perhaps most beloved by viewers of daytime television, where for three decades he played the perpetually understanding Dr. Tom Horton on nbc's Days of Our Lives--and provided the show's trademark voice-over: "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives." DIED. WALTER LANTZ, 93, animator; in Burbank, California. "Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha! Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha!" The maniacal chortle of Lantz's Woody Woodpecker is probably the most universally recognized laugh since Santa Claus first ho-ho-hoed--an enduring, if somewhat annoying, piece of Americana. Lantz, known more for his craftsmanship than his originality, ran his own animation studio by the late 1920s, where he produced the first Technicolor cartoon and a host of characters like Andy Panda and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. None came close to the success of Woody Woodpecker, who first hit the screen in 1940. Lantz reveled in the probably apocryphal tale of a woodpecker who disturbed his honeymoon but inspired his best-known creation. (Mrs. Lantz was Woody's voice for most of his career.) INSIDE WASHINGTON Shalala's Altogether Impropriety-Free Party The furor over ethics has some Clintonites treading very lightly. Health and Human Services head DONNA SHALALA wanted to throw a routine book party for her friend Madeleine Kunin, deputy secretary of Education, who's published her memoirs. Even though the do was to be held at a friend's house, Shalala got clearance from an HHS ethics officer, sternly forbade book-selling at the party, wrote the invitation herself and stood in line at Kinko's for copies. All this to thwart any criticism that either Shalala or Kunin were using their connections for gain. WINNERS & LOSERS WINNERS JOEY BUTTAFUOCO Statutory rapist is freed from jail, house hunting in Hamptons HOCKEY STAR WAYNE GRETZKY The Great One is now The Greatest with his record 802nd goal MARIO CUOMO Howard Stern's bid for Governor divides New York's pro-death penalty vote LOSERS JONATHAN POLLARD Despite a big campaign for his release, Israel's spy has pardon nixed WILLIAM KENNEDY III Lawyer who vets White House staff has own nanny-tax problem NASA Congressional Budget Office says agency may have to scrap entire astronaut program </body> </article> </text>