NATION AND WORLD
University Daily Kansan, February 8, 1984
Page 10
Taxpayers paid senator's sightseeing tab
By GREGORY GORDON United Press International
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third in a series of reports investigating overseas travel made by members of Congress.
WASHINGTON — In a Jaguar Daimler limousine charged to taxpayers, Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, rode more than 100 miles to Norwich, England, in July to search a graveyard for his ancestors' tombstones
The next day, the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee again enjoyed the comfort of the Daimler — the model used by Queen Elizabeth II's mother. Tower took his daughter on a tour of London.
DURING THE WEEK he spent in Britain to appear before the Oxford Union Debating Society, Tower used the elegant, eight-seat limousine — complete with chauffeur — for six days, frequently for sightseeing tours. When Tower went to meetings he sometimes let his daughter, Penny, and a military escort officer, take the car, the chauffeur recalls.
The Daimler cost taxpayers $2,074 — one of which Tower says he thought it was too high.
On a February 1983 visit to Geneva and England, Tower also shuffled meal charges to the State Department, United Press International and the civic watchdog Better Government Association found in a review of travel records on the July triumph to London, he attached to the Times, that $800 in meals — but seven months later, facing inquiries from UPI, Tower reimbursed the Navy.
AT ONE $400 dinner at London's swanky Le Carlton Restaurant, Tower, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and three Armed Services Committee aides shared a $67 magnum of Chateau
Duhart Milon wine produced by Rothschild, the world's most famous vineyard.
Pressed in recent days about Tower's limousine charges and diversion of meal bills to taxpayers, the senator's spokeswoman said he has been "trying" to reimburse the government for months.
The spokeswoman, Linda Hill, said that Tower never received a bill for two days' personal use of the car — $879— because of an embassy "bookkeeping error." She said that Tower "thought he had repaired it and was charged with the limousine was charged to taxpayers, indicate Tower used it more than two days for touring.
HILL SAI THE auto was selected by the embassy in London.
She then delivered a statement from Charles H. Price II, ambassador to Britain, saying the bills covering official and private portions of the limousine use accidentally were "consequential" in no way responsible" for the snau.
Tower's office produced no correspondence showing Tower had attempted to pay the bill in the seven months since his trip.
After UPI and the BGA asked to see records of a Navy escort officer's expenditures on Tower during the same England trip in July, Hill said that Tower was reimbursed the military $68.82 for meals. The Navy advised Tower's office of the inquiry, and after he reimbursed the money it released the trip records — with no mention of the meal expenditures.
HILL SAID TOWER, who used "excess per diem (daily expense money)" to cover half the cost of the February dinner with Warner in London, "never intended to repay" the money. The escort officer although he collected expense money that day for meals and lodging.
In a letter to Secretary of State George Shultz April 11, Tower requested the Air Force escort officer be reimbursed for the dinner from the U.S. Treasury — without mentioning any personal obligation.
Tower also failed to return as much as $40 in daily per diem money he collected for four days on which he had paid. He did not heid did not plan to return that money.
Tower, who announced in August he would not seek re-election when he completes 24 years in the Senate this fall, declined an interview request.
In a review of State Department and Pentagon records, UPI and BGA found Tower was not the only member to enjoy the benefits of congressional foreign travels that cost taxpayers at least $21.6 million in fiscal 1983:
Howard refused to be interviewed. Through a spokesman, he said he discussed "public works and economic development" at the dinner with members of the Irish parliament and foreign ministry and that it resulted in his imprisonment. He said he now has an Irish student intern working in his office. After stopping in Ireland, Howard and Roe went to the Paris Air Show.
- In May, Rep. James Howard, D-N.J., asked the State Department to arrange a dinner with Irish officials at the Mirabeau Restaurant, Dublin's most expensive, which opened on a Sunday night especially for the occasion. The chairman of the House Works Committee sipped $57-a bottle Krug champagne and smoked Boulevard cigars with Rep. Robert Roe, President of the Irish Officials. The dinner, or 10 cost $1,900 — $190 a person. Outside the Mirabeau, two chauffeus in Mercedes-Benz limousines drawing $171 in overtime pay while waiting until 2 a.m. for Howard and Roe to emerge.
WASHINGTON — This bill is for a $1,900 dinner that Rep. James Howard, D-N.J., and Rep. Robert Roe, D-N.J., had in May with Irish officials at the most expensive restaurant in Dublin, Ireland.
Cold kills 47 but it spares citrus crops
By United Press International
Nearly a dozen southern cities reported record-low temperatures — but the forecast hard freeze that hit Arizona and Oregon did orange crop never materialized.
Arctic cold that killed 47 people yesterday stung deep into Dixie, setting a dozen temperature records from Louisiana to Florida but sparing citrus growers who feared the disease to use both their trees and their crops.
"Generally we lucked out," said Ernie Neff, a spokesman for the industry group Florida Citrus Mutual.
A Christmas freeze cost growers up to $500 million and analysts predicted a second freeze would force growers to cut their trees down to stumps and wait up to 10 years for them to bear profitable fruit.
It was a record-tying 26 at Jacksonville, Fla., north of the citrus belt.
At least 47 deaths nationwide have been blamed on the latest cold snap. Sixteen people died in Minnesota. Nine people died in North Dakota, four in Alabama, three each in Indiana, Indiana and Wisconsin, each one in Iowa, one each in Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina and Ohio
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Those who died in Indiana were two Seelyville girls killed when a space heater ignited bedroom drapes, and an elderly woman who walked away from a Bremen nursing home wearing only a nightgown.
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