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University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1985
News Briefs
Goetz defense wants charges dismissed
NEW YORK - Attempted murder charges against subway gunman Bernhard Hugo Goetz should be dismissed because prosecutors withheld evidence from a second grand jury and improperly instructed the panel, defense lawyers argued yesterday.
Assistant District Attorney Gregory Waples denied any impropriety in the handling of the celebrated case.
Suspect to go to trial
LOS ANGELES — A judge yesterday ordered Cathy Evelyn Smith to stand trial for second degree murder in the death of comedian John Belushi, who was found dead from an overdose of cocaine and heroin in a Hollywood hotel in 1982.
Municipal Court Judge James Nelson allowed Smith, a former rock backup singer, to remain free on bail pending a Superior Court arraignment Dec. 10 on the murder count and 13 counts of administering drugs.
NEW YORK — A gleaming new torch was hoisted up the side of the Statue of Liberty and placed in her hand yesterday, $1/2 years after the removal of the battered old light that had been a beacon to thousands of immigrants.
Ladv gets new torch
The new torch is part of a $260 million restoration project of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.
Shuttle launch OK'd
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The shuttle Atlantis was cleared yesterday for a dazzling launch tonight on a weeklong flight to carry three satellites into orbit and featuring spacewalks to practice space station construction.
Engineers worked through the day priming the giant space freighter for its second flight and if all goes well, Atlantis and its seven-member international crew will streak aloft at 7:29 p.m. EST today.
From Kansan wires.
Former agent admits data sale
BALTIMORE — A former National Security Agency communications specialist admitted to FBI agents that he has sold extremely sensitive classified information about U.S. intelligence activities to the Soviet Union, according to a federal court document filed yesterday.
The Associated Press
Ronald William Pelton, 44, who worked for the NSA from 1965 to 1979, told the FBI in an interview Sunday that he met with KBG officer Anatoly Slavnov on several occasions from January 1980 through January 1983, said an FBI affidavit signed by agent David Faulkner.
Pelton was arrested in Annapolis, Md., yesterday and accused of violating federal law concerning the gathering of defense information for a foreign government.
Fred Warren Bennett, Pelton's court-appointed attorney, said his client's FBI statement should not be characterized as a confession.
Pelton admitted receiving cash payments from the Soviet agent on several occasions, including a $15,000 payoff as a result of a trip to Vienna.
The FBI said Pelton went to the Soviet Embassy in Washington in January 1980 to offer to spy for the Soviets in return for cash. On that occasion, the FBI said, he provided information about a United States intelligence collection project targeted at the Soviet Union.
Austria, in January 1983, according to the affidavit.
Pelton had serious financial troubles at about the time he allegedly decided to begin his espionage activities, having filed for bankruptcy in April 1979, the affidavit said.
The former NSA employee said his spy trips continued through this year, and that he made a trip to Vienna as recently as last April to meet with a Soviet contact, according to the affidavit.
According to the court documents, Pelton failed to meet that contact in Vienna and was asked to
make another trip in October. The affidavit does not give any evidence he made the October trip.
Pelton, an Annapolis yacht salesman who listed a home address in Washington, D.C., appeared briefly before U.S. Magistrate Daniel E. Klein Jr. in Baltimore.
Klein ordered him held until a detention hearing tomorrow, when bail would be set.
Pelton did not enter a plea to the charge of conspiracy under a federal statute prohibiting the gathering of U.S. defense information for a foreign government.
The court documents indicate that Pelton did not start delivering secrets to the Soviets until after he left the NSA, and that the Soviets received only dated information learned during Pelton's government service.
The FBI said that Pelton spent three to four days in Vienna during each of two trips and was housed at the apartment of the Soviet ambassador to Austria, within the Soviet embassy compound.
Law delays sale of arms
United Press International
WASHINGTON — President Reagan signed a compromise Senate resolution yesterday that bars a nearly $2 billion sale of advanced weapons to Jordan until at least March 1 unless Jordan negotiates for peace directly with Israel.
In a statement, Reagan said, "This legislation expresses Congress' belief that the peace process should be our primary concern."
"Peace remains my main concern as it is that of (Jordanian) King Hussein, (Israeli) Prime Minister Shimon Peres and other responsible leaders in the Middle East," Reagan said in signing the resolution into law.
Reagan originally asked Congress to approve outright the sale to Jordan of the costly package of fighter aircraft, air defense missiles, armored vehicles and other equipment. But in the face of overwhelming congressional opposition, the president retreated and agreed to the Senate compromise resolution banning any sale until March 1 without direct negotiations between the two countries.
"King Hussein has taken dramatic steps towards peace, steps which have exposed him and the people of Jordan to strong pressure and bloody violence from those adamantly opposed to any peace settlement."
Envoy hopes for solutions
United Press International
NEW YORK — Anglican church envoy Terry Waite arrived yesterday in New York to meet with U.S. officials on his efforts to free four American hostages in Beirut, saying negotiations were at a "hopeful stage" but could still fall through.
Waite, the secretary to Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, told a news conference shortly after his arrival from Athens that he believed the captors of the American hostages wanted a solution and that he was making his appeal based on religious and humanitarian grounds.
"I think they would like a resolution to this problem, and I regard it as a hopeful sign they will talk to me," he said. "It's rather a hopeful stage at the moment.
Hopeful, but by no means there."
Waite told reporters in Athens, where he stopped off on his way from Lebanon, that he had met the Moslem fundamentalist kidnappers of the four Americans at least three times while in Beirut, where he was trapped four days by fierce Moslem militia battles that killed dozens of people.
"This situation is the most difficult and dangerous that I have ever encountered," he said in New York. "Whilst I remain quietly optimistic, by no means are we through the problem. There are very grave dangers ahead."
Waite said he expected to return to Lebanon after meeting U.S. officials in New York.
Filipinos urge Aquino to run
United Press International
MANILA, Philippines — A group urging the widow of slain opposition leader Benigno Aquino to run against President Ferdinand Marcos in upcoming elections announced yesterday that it has collected 1 million signatures endorsing her candidacy.
"I don't know of anywhere in the world where this kind of thing has happened," Lupita Kashiwahara, Benigno Aquino's sister, said during a celebration at the headquarters of the Draft Cory Aquino for President Movement.
Marcos recently called for "snap," or early, presidential elections amid sharp domestic and U.S. criticism over his handling of a growing communist insurgency and a severe economic crisis.
The elections, originally scheduled for when Marcos' term runs out in 1987, are now set for Feb. 7. Philippine law demands that in early elections, the president must resign before the vote. Marcos has submitted a resignation letter, but it will be effective only after a winner is declared.
popular figure in the Philippines despite a lack of political experience, said she would consider running against Marcos if 1 million signatures had been collected urging her to enter the race.
Aquino's widow, Corazon, a
Former newspaper publisher Joaquin Roces, 7,12, said his group had collected 1,005,882 signatures as of 6.35 p.m. yesterday in support of her candidacy.
"One million is just the beginning." he said.
Roces said he called Aquino when they reached 1 million and she thanked him.
2 suspects sought in explosion
The Associated Press
FRANKFURT, West Germany — Two men thought to be carrying Moroccan passports became prime suspects yesterday in the hunt for those who bombed a U.S. military shopping center, West German authorities reported.
Sunday's car bombing wounded 35 people, almost all of them U.S. civilians and servicemen. Three remained hospitalized, one a serviceman who had been listed in serious condition but was upgraded to good condition.
Officials have refused to release the names of the injured.
Authorities first had said the attack looked like the work of West German leftist terrorists. Later they said foreigners might have been responsible, and federal police issued a statement saying the silver-blue metallic BMW 525 sedan in which the explosives were packed had been bought Saturday by two men "aparently carrying Moroccan passports."
Authorities issued descriptions and composite pictures of the pair and asked possible witnesses to report any sightings of the men, described as being in their 30s.
"They may be Arabs," the statement said, adding that both were definitely foreigners and that only one spoke any German. One man's name appeared on his passport as "Anz Muhein."
Police said the two told the automobile dealership they were taking the BMW to Rabat, the Moroccan capital, where they resided.
The same second-hand car dealership, outside Frankfurt, also sold the car that was used in a bombing at the U.S. Air Force Rhein-Main Air Base on Aug. 8, which killed two Americans and injured 20 people.
The left-wing Red Army Faction terrorist group claimed responsibility for that attack, but there was no immediate assertion of responsibility for Sunday's blast.
Police said one of the men was between 30 and 35, with short black hair and black moustache. The other was between 35 and 40 years old