8A
Monday, March 10, 1997
NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FBI says China tried to buy votes
Republicans want to know if Clinton knew of the probe
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Republican leaders pledged yesterday to find out what the White House knew about an FBI investigation into alleged Chinese attempts to buy influence in American politics last year. Leon Panetta, White House chief of staff at the time, said that his office knew nothing about it.
Panetta and his successor, Erskine Bowles, also mounted a defense of the Clinton administration's aggressive fund-raising activities before the 1996 election, saying they were forced to collect a lot of money to stop the Republican agenda from winning.
"We at the White House were in a fight of our lives," Bowles said on ABC's This Week. "This president
was fighting for what he believed in.
Campaign finance scandals dominated yesterday's television news programs. The chief topic was a story in The Washington Post that said the FBI warned six members of Congress that they were targets of an illegal effort by China to funnel laundered money to influential lawmakers.
The article, quoting government officials, said that investigators had conclusive evidence that Chinese funds entered the country last year, although it remains uncertain whether any of the money reached congressional or presidential campaigns.
One senator, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., confirmed through a spokesman that she was briefed last June about the Chinese money-laundering threat. The other five were not identified.
Panetta, interviewed on NBC's Meet the Press, said that neither he nor President Clinton was advised of the FBI probe.
"Obviously this is something that
the Justice Department is investigating," Panetta said. "Congress ought to investigate because clearly this kind of thing should not have happened."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said on Fox News Sunday that it seemed to him that the White House had to be warned. too.
"And if that's true, that makes these charges or these allegations even more serious than before," he said.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that he believed the FBI didn't warn the White House because the money had already been delivered.
"There's a potential for people in the White House to be under investigation in this attempt, so I think that's why they were not informed," McCain said.
McCain said that the main Chinese objective had to be to influence the annual debate over extending to China most-favored-nation trade status or normal commercial relations.
"Billions of dollars in trade were involved," he said.
"It's high-stakes poker, and if this is true that Chinese were attempting indirectly to influence that vote in our electoral process, that's unacceptable," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-III, who joined McCain on CNN's Late Edition.
Signature souvenirs stolen from IRS
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service's former historian says the agency mishandles, even destroys, important historical records. The alleged law violations includes the vandalizing of presidential tax returns by IRS employees seeking souvenirs.
A new book by Shelley L. Davis, who resigned in 1995, hits the stands as the tax-collecting agency faces attacks on its system.
In a passage of Davis' book Unbridled Power: Inside the Secret Culture of the IRS, she describes reviewing tax returns of presidents dating back to Woodrow Wilson.
Davis writes that IRS privacy laws prevent her from detailing tax return contents. But, she wrote, "I can note, to my dismay, that the signature blocks on nearly all the returns had been torn off—where the president had set down his autograph."
Davis said that an IRS secretary mumbled about 'souvenir hunting' when she reported the vandalism.
IRS spokesman Frank Keith said that he couldn't respond to the allegation because the tax code forbids disclosing information about any taxpayer's return—even the president's.
Keith denied charges the agency violates the Federal Records, Act in its handling of old IRS files and taxpayer returns.
Links of Swiss banks to Nazi gold still vague
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A draft U.S. report on Nazi gold is likely to disappoint Jewish groups looking for direct evidence that melted-down jewelry and dental fillings of Holocaust victims went to Swiss banks.
Officials said an examination of American files turned up grusome documentation that Adolf Hitler's troops seized money, gold and possessions from concentration camp prisoners. There's also proof the booty went to Nazi Germany's Reichsbank, which dealt with Swiss banks during World War II.
However, despite strong suspicions by the United States and the Allies, the records do not establish definitively that Switzerland accepted so-called non-monetary gold from personal effects when its banks took for safekeeping gold bars the Germans
looted from banks across Europe, said officials close to the investigation.
Evidence that Swiss banks accepted not only looted gold but also that extracted from Holocaust victims would increase the moral imperative for making fresh reparations—and would shatter Swiss arguments that the country did not collude completely with the Nazis.
"The Allies never really came up with any hard-core evidence that the Swiss accepted that kind of gold," said one official familiar with documents examined for the report. "You would almost have to have people on site testing it as it came in. Whether the gold the Allies captured in the camps was slated for Switzerland, perhaps we'll never know."
This official and most others interviewed spoke on condition that they not be identified.
Union recruits asbestos workers
The Associated Press
SANTA FE SPRINGS, Calif. — In a large-scale attempt to recover some of the labor movement's old clout by rebuilding its ranks, a major laborers' union is in the midst of a million-dollar campaign to organize Southern California's asbestos workers.
The behind-the-scenes unionizing is set to go public today, flexing the newfound muscle of the Laborers' International Union of North America with demonstrations in Los Angeles.
The effort is part of a cultural shift under way in organized labor. Most of the 2,500 targeted asbestos-removal workers are Latino immigrants. Many lack proper immigration papers and fear that if they complain about poor working conditions, employers will summon authorities.
"It's got all the ingredients of what the labor movement should be doing," Richard Bensinger, AFL-CIO organizing director, said. "They are helping one of the most exploited work forces in the country."
Rather than fight employers one at a time, the Laborers' International is taking on the entire regional industry in a high-profile campaign unusual in the stodgy old building trades, Duane Stillwell, organizing director, said.
The union began the drive in Los Angeles County, where it has leverage with unionized general contractors hiring asbestos-removal companies.
Stillwell said that the drive would heat up this week with protests in downtown Los Angeles complete with demonstrators clad in asbestos-proof garb. Organizers hope owners of buildings besieged by picketers will be able to sway contractors to improve working conditions and wages.
At the same time, the union is
reaching out to churches and immigrant groups,trying to raise a critical mass of community support.
Organizers said that the region's asbestos workers earned an average of $8 per hour with no benefits and had to put in uncompensated overtime.
Their work is also dangerous. Inhaling asbestos fibers can cause lung cancer or asbestosis, a deadly lung disease that can lie dormant for as long as 20 years. Typically nonunion asbestos workers get no health benefits.
Workers said that they often were provided no gloves or new filters for protective masks and that wash stations were improperly installed. They claimed that supervisors rushing to beat deadlines had asbestos removed without hosing it down and preventing fibers from becoming airborne.
Susan McNiel, executive director of the Southern California branch of the Associated Builders and Contractors, said that federal regulations mandated strict rules on safe asbestos removal.
She said that dodging federal law would put contractors at great risk of losing licenses. She expressed surprise that any would chance that.
Immigrant workers move frequently, organizers said, and bad addresses are a constant frustration.
But after fruitless visits to seven homes one night, rank-and-file organizer Luís Espejel hit pay dirt. In one apartment, he found five asbestos workers eager to sign cards and provide a phone list of three dozen co-workers.
"They want to join the campaign because they're tired of being treated badly," Espejel said. "There's a lot of pressure. The shower is not in good condition. They claim that they have old filters."