NATION
Wednesday, September 23, 1992
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
7
Kissinger calls allegations a lie
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Henry Kissinger yesterday denounced as a lie the allegation that he and others knew U.S. servicemen were left behind when the war in Southeast Asia ended two decades ago.
Two people who made such suggestions Monday were Kissinger's colleagues from the Nixon administration — defense secretaries James Schlesinger and Melvin Laird.
But the former secretary of state and national security adviser acknowledged that even as he negotiated peace with the North Vietnamese, he recognized they had not provided an adequate accounting for missing U.S. servicemen.
And in a sometimes hostile exchange with members of a Senate committee, Kissinger did not rule out the possibility that some U.S. soldiers survived after the U.S. withdrawal from the jungles of Southeast Asia in 1973.
"I think it's improbable any are alive today," Kissinger said. "I have always kept open the possibility in my mind there were some in Laos."
Kissinger's intensely defensive, sometimes combative testimony came under oath before an extraordinary hearing by the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs.
The bipartisan panel is trying to answer lingering questions about the fate of missing soldiers and airmen two decades after the conclusion of the Vietnam War, which divided the nation.
Kissinger testified a day after other former Nixon officials, including Schlesinger and Laird, said they thought some U.S. prisoners were still in Vietnam or Laos after the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the 1973 release of more than 591 prisoners of war. The former defense secretaries cited reliable reports of more POWs, particularly in Laos, than were released.
"If we had known, if we had heard this, we would have acted on it," Kissinger said.
Kissinger said neither man ever expressed those views at the time.
Kissinger insisted that the administration has pressed the North Vietnamese strongly for release of all prisoners and an accounting of the missing, including those in neighboring Laos. But he contended the administration's efforts were undercut by actions in Congress to force an end to U.S. military operations, including bombing of the North.
He bitterly disputed suggestions that when President Nixon announced that all prisoners were on the way home, he or his aides knew that many were left behind.
Kissinger challenged the committee's chair, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. He said Kerry's anti-war efforts at that time contributed to the political climate that made it impossible for the administration to obtain a fuller accounting from North Vietnam, even
after one was required by the Paris peace accords.
"It is totally inappropriate for those who prevented any sort of military action to blame those of us who wanted to enforce the agreement," Kissinger said.
"Look, I didn't ask for this job," Kerry told Kissinger. "I'm here because 20 years later the questions still confound America."
A decorated Vietnam veteran, Kerry turned against the war in 1970, testifying before Congress and helping found the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Demonstrating that the Vietnam War's conduct still triggers profound political disagreement, the panel's vice chairman, Sen. Bob Smith, R.N.H., interjected a harsh view from the conservative right: "My peace movement would have been to make them a parking lot at the end of the war, but unfortunately that didn't happen."
Court rules anti-abortion law in Louisiana unconstitutional
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana's anti-abortion law, which would send offending doctors to prison, was ruled unconstitutional yesterday by a federal appeals court.
The state attorney general was unsure whether he would appeal.
U. S. District Judge Adrian Duplantier struck down the law shortly after it was passed last year over the veto of the governor.
Duplantier said then Roe is wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established about rights, remained the law of the law.
Since then, the Supreme Court upheld some abortion restrictions in Pennsylvania.
That paved the way for yesterday's ruling by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, uphold Duplantier's decision.
In its 3-0 ruling, the panel said
Louisiana's law was "clearly unconstitutional" in light of the Pennsylvania case.
Louisiana Attorney General Richard leyoub said the state had 90 days to decide whether to appeal. leyoub said Guam had already asked the Supreme Court to review its anti-abortion law, which is similar to Louisiana's.
A decision from the nation's high court was expected soon, he said.
"If they deny Guam's request, they would be sending a clear message that they will not view favorably statutes that are prohibitory," Jeyoub said. "It could sound the death knell for prohibitory abortion statutes."
Louisiana's law would have banned all abortions except to save the mother's life and, in certain cases of rape or incest. Doctors who performed illegal abortions would face prison terms of up to 10 years and fines of up to $100,000.
Bush expected to veto bill regulating cable TV
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 74-25 yesterday to regulate cable television, sending a bill to the White House that responds to consumer complaints about rapid price increases by cable operators.
But President Bush says he will veto it because it puts regulations on the industry that would hurt consumers
The measure requires the Federal Communications Commission to determine reasonable rates for minimal cable service and restrict costs on the equipment consumers need to operate cable television, like remote control devices.
It also contains provisions designed to enhance competition in local communities between existing cable companies and others that could provide a similar kind of expanded television programming.
The strength of the vote, seven more than needed to override a veto, shows the Senate can do its part to make the
bill law despite the president.
Voting for the legislation were 50 Democrats and 24 Republicans. Seven Democrats and 18 Republicans voted against it.
Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., one of the bill's sponsors, said he hoped Bush would not vet the bill.
"There are a number of Republican senators who would like to support the president, but have a record supporting this," Danforth said. "It's very hard to ask them to go back and change positions."
The House of Representatives approved the bill 280-128 Thursday, and supporters there were confident that the necessary votes to override a veto.
A two-thirds majority of those voting is needed in each chamber to enact a law against a president's wishes. That is 289 votes in the House if all 433 representatives vote and 67 in the 100-member Senate. Bush has vetoed 31 bills, none overridden by Congress.
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