University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, August 26, 1987
7B
O'Neill autobiography bluntly evaluates leaders
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill, in his candid new autobiography, calls Robert Kennedy a "self-important upstart," Mikhail Gorbachev "a very appealing" but dangerous man and Ronald Reagan a bad president who would have made a great king.
"Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O'Neill," is a string of blunt assessments and anecdotes that spans more than 60 years of politics.
O'Neill tells about his career from his first dip into politics, campaigning for Alfred E. Smith's presidential election in 1928 as a high school freshman in Cambridge, Mass., through his 34 years in the House, the last 10 as speaker. He retired this year at age 74.
The Massachusetts Democrat praises his longtime adversary, President Reagan, for his sense of humor and extraordinary communication skills.
"He's the best public speaker I've ever seen. With age, I will beginning to think that in this respect he dwarfs both Roosevelt and Kennedy." O'Neill writes.
only on his policies but on his handling of the job as president.
"Ronald Reagan lacked the knowledge he should have had in every sphere, both domestic and international," O'Neill wrote. "Most of the time he was an actor reading lines, who didn't understand his own programs. I hate to say it about such an agreeable man, but it was sinful that Ronald Reagan ever became president."
"But let me give him his due: He would have made a great king."
He calls former President Carter "the smartest public official I've ever known" on the issues but says he failed because he refused to learn the ways of Washington.
O'Neill places much of the blame on Carter's staff, who he said treated Congress like the Georgia Legislature.
"As far as (chief of staff Hamilton) Jordan was concerned, a house speaker was something you bought on sale at Radio Shack," he writes, chastising Jordan for giving the O'Neill family back-row seats at a 1981 inaugural gala.
madam george.
Discussing Soviet leader Gorbachev, O'Neill says: "He's a very appealing guy, which is what makes him so dangerous. The
Russian leadership may have affected a new and more sophisticated style, but the Soviet bear remains as aggressive and unpredictable as ever."
Most of the time he was an actor reading lines, who didn't understand his own programs. I hate to say it about such an agreeable man, but it was sinful that Ronald Reagan ever became president.'
- Tip O'Neill
Former House speaker
O'Neill praises the late John F. Kennedy, whom he replaced in the House in 1828 when JFK won a Senate seat, but reveals a deep rift with the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
"We weren't friendly, and to be blunt about it, I never really liked him." O'Neill writes. "To me he was a self-important upstart and a know-it-all."
O'Neill says that in the 1950s Robert Kennedy told a senator he was considering challenging O'Neill for his House seat, but JFK spoke with his father and assured O'Neill he would not be challenged.
On John Kennedy's assassination, O'Neil says "there will always be some skepticism" because of a conversation he had with Kenneth O'Donnell, a Kennedy aide who was directly behind the president's car in Dallas.
O'Neill says O'Donnell told him years later that he heard two shots from another direction, but did not tell the investigating Warren Commission because the FBI told him "it couldn't have appened that way" and he did not want to "stir up any more pain and trouble" for the Kennedy family.
O'Donnell has since died, but O'Neill says David Powers, another Kennedy aide, confirmed the story and also believed there were
two shots from another direction.
two stories from shorts on Powers, now curator of the JFK Library in Boston, said Monday in a telephone interview that the O'Neill story was not true.
During the Watergate crisis, O'Neill said he began having "serious doubts" about President Nixon's mental stability.
O'Neill does not save all his barbs for politicians.
After several White House briefings in which Nixon seemed unstable, O'Neill said he called then-Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and asked, "Is anybody over there watching to make sure he doesn't put his finger on the button?"
He lambasts the news media for "embracing" and "rooting" for Reagan. "They liked him as an individual, and instead of hard questions they should have been asking, they tended to throw creampuffs."
And in 1973, when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned under fire, O'Neill said many liberal House Democrats "had a soft spot" for Agnew because of his intense attacks on the media.
"A lot of us in public office actually enjoyed seeing the press get its comeupnance," he writes.
Appeals court throws out Tennessee textbook case
The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A federal appeals court has thrown out a case in which seven families alleged their First Amendment rights were violated by public school textbooks that they said offended their Christian beliefs, the state attorney general said recently.
However, a lawyer for the families said he would appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
State Attorney General W.J. Michael Cody said he had been advised of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by the court's clerk, and that the case had been sent back to U.S. District Judge Thomas G. Hull "with instructions to dismiss it."
"We are very pleased," Cody said of the appellate ruling.
The court of appeals threw out the damages.
In an earlier ruling, Hull had ordered the Hawkins County Board of Education to pay the families for private school tuition and other expenses, totaling more than $50,000.
Hull ruled Oct. 24 that the school board violated the families' civil rights by ignoring their religious beliefs and requiring their children to read the assigned texts or leave school.
Michael Farris, who represented the families, said in a telephone interview that the decision by a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals in Cincinnati would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We always viewed this level of the decision as just a whistlestop on the way to an ultimate decision by the U.S. Supreme Court," said Farris, who represents Concerned Women for America, a group that supports the families.
"There is absolutely no support in legal precedent for such a narrow, limited view of the First Amendment," Farris said.
But lawyer Timothy Dyk, retained by People for the American Way to represent the Hawkins County Board of Education, called the Court of Appeals decision "a wonderful decision. I think it's a great triumph for the public school system."
Dyk said reversal of Hull's decision "will allow them (public schools) to go about their business the way they have for generations."
The parents sued the board in 1983, claiming that the required Holt, Rinehart, Winston books violated their beliefs by teaching evolution, secular humanism, the occult and other anti-religious beliefs.
The parents listed more than 300 objections to the Holt reading series, including, passages from "The Diary of Anne Frank," which was said to instruct that all religions are equal in God's eye, and from "The Wizard of Oz," said to contradict the Bible's lesson that all witches are bad.
The lawsuit also objected to passages in stories by Margaret Mead, an anthropologist, science writer Isaac Asimov, and Hans
Christian Andersen, famed writer of fairy tales.
Rebecca Hagelin, spokeswoman for Concerned Women for America, said the parents did not object to the stories as much as they did to what she called recurring themes of feminism, the occult and other beliefs
"I think it's already shown these people in Hawkins County that they can't run over people," he said.
Jon Court, 46, of Church Hill, one of the parents fighting the use of the Holt series, said he had tired of the struggle.
Another one of the parents,
Rachel W. Baker, who had two
children involved in the suit,
declined comment on the ruling
Concerned Women for America is a conservative Washington-based lobbying group that says it works to preserve the rights of families and Judeo-Christian traditions.
People for the American Way is a Washington-based lobbying group founded by television producer Norman Lear to promote liberal causes.
The two groups have used the textbook case as a battleground for their respective political beliefs.
June 1986 trial, labeled "Scopes II" by both sides, took place 150 miles up the Tennessee River from Dayton, where Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan argued in 1925 whether evolution should be taught in Tennessee public schools.
Accident victim still unknown
The Associated Press
NEVADA, Mo. — The mystery remains 15 months after a man was struck and killed by a car as he stood on U.S. 54 near the Missouri-Kansas state line.
The marker on his grave in Newton Burial Park shows only the day he died — May 11, 1986.
"We tried everything we could, but we hit a blank wall each time." Highway Patrol Trooper E.J. Newman, the accident investigator, said of efforts to identify the victim who is listed only as John Doe.
"This is the first time I've ever encountered anything like this, and it really bothers me. I'd like to get it solved, identify him and close the case." Newman said.
U. S. 54 about a half mile from the Kansas border. Witnesses reported seeing the man standing in the road staring at the ground, he said. The witnesses they turned their car around to go back and help the man but he had been hit by the time they returned.
He said the man died shortly after midnight in the westbound lane of
The victim's wallet contained only an advertisement for a Joplin trucking firm and a slip of paper with a woman's name and an address. Efforts to trace the woman through the Tulsa, Okla., address failed.
Newman said the victim's fingerprints were sent to the FBI in Washington, but that also turned out to be a dead end.
"He was never in trouble and never in the army, or the FBI would have had his fingerprints," Newman said. "The prints are usually your best
hope if he's not a local guy."
A description of the victim — about 30 years of age, 5 feet 10, about 160 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes, and several scars — and a photograph and composite picture were distributed nationwide. Authorities hoped that someone would report a missing person who matched the description.
"There have been quite a few that were close," Newman said. "It looked real good at one point. I was just sure we had it, but at the last minute it turned out not to be him."
"I keep thinking that someday someone who was close to him will call," Newman said. "He's got to belong to someone. It's amazing someone hasn't reported him.
FAA chief to meet with pilots in K.C.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The head of the Federal Aviation Administration will meet this week in Kansas City, Mo., with chief pilots of U.S. airlines as part of a review of pilot training by air carriers.
FAA administrator T. Allan McArter said the meeting tomorrow was part of a "total top-to-bottom reassessment of our pilot training, our crew coordination procedures" by large airlines and commuter operations.
He made his remarks in an interview Sunday on ABC-TV's "This Week With David Brinkley."
Sloane, said that details of the meeting were still being worked out, but that up to 50 chief pilots could be at the meeting. She also emphasized that the meeting was not prompted by the recent Northwest Airlines crash that killed 156 people.
Shortly after assuming his duties as FAA chief last month, McArter announced plans for a nationwide pilot training review. The move came after the FAA initiated an examination of training programs at Delta Air Lines because of several mistakes by its pilots in a period of several weeks. In one incident, two jetliners came within 100 feet of colliding over the North Atlantic.
An FAA spokeswoman, Jo Ann
Menninger recovering at his home
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — Karl Menninger, the eminent psychiatrist who is co-founder and chairman of the Menninger Foundation, returned home this week after a week at the Colmery-O Neil Veterans Administration Medical Center.
Meningner, who turned 94 last month, was hospitalized Aug.17 for treatment of bronchitis. Judy Craig, spokeswoman for the foundation, said he was expected to rest at home for a few days before returning to work.
The foundation, established in 1941, is a nonprofit organization.
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