August 1988

8/1/88

OAS found Honduras guilty in the disappearance of a citizen 1986, ordered compensation paid. He was part of “a policy of disappearances directed or tolerated by the Government.”

Koestler’s Darkness at Noon being pub. USSR

Judge blocks plan to subject 1,800 Justice employees to drug tests

Neutral NYT headline: “Dukakis Criticizes Reagan Recovery.”

Plan (though not details) for covert ops against Noriega become public. It is suggested that the admin setting up Congress for the charge of leaking.

Jordan has given up claims to W Bank in favor of PLO, under Arab pressure. US says it would still have to be part of peace process. Jordan has dissolved its Parl (½ W Bank), ended aid, stopped paying officials (which inc teachers, muni employees, clergy). Question of whether will revoke passports of 1m W Bankers, really stop paying 13,000 salaries

Federally, AIDS tests used to exclude diseased from Peace Corps, Job Corps, military & dipl service


8/2/88

RR did not veto (or sign) the bill forcing businesses 100+ to give 60 days’ notice clsoing or lay-offs

Bentsen didn’t support Stevenson in 1952.

Newsday’s Robert Reno says the McKay report “comes with in a frog’s hair of saying that the attorney general of the United States... was too stupid to indict.”

Barry Commoner was in the NY delegation at the Conv.


8/3/88

July 1,639 Soviet Jews left, still through Vienna, 90 to Israel.

Shamir said the move serves “to prove that the Palestinian people is an invention for the propaganda purposes of Arab leaders.”

Deep voodoo doo-doo: Bush is promising steady defense spending, pensions left alone, to freeze discretionary spending “flexibly,” pay for a $2.2b child care program & never increase taxes, and balance the budget by 1993 His disapproval rating (40%) higher than that of McGovern or Goldwater at this stage.

A judge ruled that reporters must respect confidentiality of a source. The case was of a candidate who smeared another one, and was then identified. Remember Ollie North, who blamed Congress for leaks he originated, and was revealed by Newsweek.


8/4/88

RR vetoed military budget in a rather obvious pol move although Carlucci, Ted Stevens, John Warner urged him to sign. Carlucci was out of the country, but RR said, “I think the secretary will abide by the decision I have made.”

Bush: “I will never apologize for the United States of America--I don’t care what the facts are.”


8/5/88

RR instructs Cabinet members to campaign as “surrogates” for Bush, inc talking w/delegates, etc. Is this legal?

Israel will not pay the salaries Jordan is stopping.

Another RR “joke” on Dukakis & medical reports: “Look, I’m not going to pick on an invalid.” looking like attempt to push LaRouche rumors of Dukakis’ mental treatment to fore.

Chilean democracy: Pinochet can and has vetoed other candidates. In 1990 elections, ¼ of Senate is appointed & prez can dissolve Chamber. The Nat Security Council is more powerful than Congress.

Ollie North trial will be after the election.

Sen. voted to exempt relig groups from D.C.’s civil rights ordinance regarding discrim against gays.


8/7/88

PLO trying to dec. the W Bank a separate country. Hussein said he would recognize any gov in exile.

VN announces it lost 55,000 in Kampuchea.

Within 24 hrs of announcement, Bentsen received approval of AFL-CIO, NOW, Robert Dole. 1987 ranked 8th among Sen. D’s in supporting RR on key votes.

Defense says it doesn’t know how many black programs exist.


8/8/88

US granting asylum to 3 Chinese couples fleeing the 1-child-per-couple policy

Thornburgh (questioned in Sen. confirmation by Gordon Humphrey) said signing proclamation of a Gay Pride Week was a mistake because of the word Pride.

Angola, SA, Cuba announce plan for peace in SW Af, w/withdrawal of Cuban & SA troops from Namibia
-SA & US will cont. support UNITA. SA will be out by Sept. 1, they say.

James Baker left Treasury for the Bush campaign; Nicholas Brady to Treasury. Bush would keep, probably


8/9/88

Wm Bennett quits as Sec Ed., replaced by a Hispanic from Texas. No politicking here.


8/10/88

Soviet human rights commission calls for release of relig prisoners (believed 180)

Fed gov cut funds to UCLA study of effectiveness of condoms against AIDS, believing high infection rates in such areas as LA, SF, NY, Miami, DC make it ineffective (recruits to study could still catch it).


8/11/88

SA cites, as one of the many “loose ends” needing to be tied up before Namibian ind, a const protecting “democracy, priv enterprise and the first-world community in the territory.” Has rejected a proposed one-man, one-vote const

Israel killed 3 people in bombing a radio station in Lebanon.

Persian Gulf peace requires UN force & US still far behind in dues.


8/12/88

District judge ordered school Fla. to build glass-fronted isolation booth for a 6-yr old retarded girl w/AIDS. [Update: eventually reversed]

Meese’s last act as atty gen: sign a rule for special prosecutors for Congress [Update: later reversed]

Ecuador elects a leftist prez Rodrigo Borja, who is allowing Castro & Ortega to visit. Shultz is there criticizing this. I give Borja 2 mos.

Prez of Burma quits after nasty demos w/hundreds dead.

House votes for withdrawal of all investment in SA. It’ll never make it past Sen. SA said this could threaten pull-out from Namibia, but so could hangnail.

3 US inspectors of USSR plants tried to smuggle back “souvenirs” inc hammer, core samples.

Bush: “A president can’t subordinate his decisionmaking to a multilateral body. He can’t sacrifice one ounce of our sovereignty to any organization.” (This week’s treaty w/Canada has binding arbitration). Calls UN “an unreal place where the Maldive Islands has the same votes as the United States.” Wonder what he thinks of the US Senate.

R. platform calls on World Bank & IMF to “stop using US dollar to foster socialism, statism and corruption in the Third World.”

PLO considering dec a Palestinian state rather than a gov in exile

SA sanctions (House): ban on all investment, no imports but publications & strategic materials, no exports but farm products, publications, pub & priv aid, no coal gas or oil leases to US subsidiaries of foreign firms w/SA invest or oil exports thereto, no US ships transport oil, no intelligence or military cooperation exc relating to Cuban troops.


8/14/88

In WW2, Bush bailed out of a plane in flames, leaving 2 inside. The guy in the plane behind his said there were no flames & Bush might have saved their lives. Dukakis refuses to use the issue in such a way as to preclude its examination.

Former top officials of the Just Say No campaign charged that Nancy R. exploited by Procter & Gamble, which inc its coupons w/letter from her to 48m homes


8/15/88

The Nation writer who broke the story of George Bush & CIA (see mid-July) found the person the CIA claimed was the real GB, more than the CIA could do. Incidentally, this Bush’s address did not change. He is 49 now, so would certainly not have received interagency briefing 1963-4.

The BBC said a week ago that Qadaffi offered to pick up tab in W Bank--no mention in NYT


8/16/88

Bush has been hoping his Hispanic daughter-in-law & Sp-speaking son would bring in votes. He probably blew it today when cameras picked him up saying to RR that those were his grandchildren, “the little brown ones.”

RR freudian slip at R convention: “facts are stupid.”

Bush picks Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana. Anti-abortion, pro-Star Wars, hawk. Says he can be a hatchet man for Bush.


8/17/88

Prez Zia of Pakistan & other military leaders d. in aircrash.

The R. convention is failing. Quayle isn’t going over big anywhere. Bush chose to protect his right flank, which will hopefully go far towards marginalizing the R’s for the future. Bush is considered insulting for believing that the young will vote for the young (Quayle is 40) & ♀ for the good-looking. Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s speech was filled w/references to this dangerous world which RR’s detente has undercut. They’re down to criticizing Dukakis’ veto of the pledge of allegiance, and pledging 20 times a day.

Navy is trying to blame flight 655 shoot-down on indivs, perhaps blaming it all on just one person.

RR said to the Ian-Contra ind prosecutor that he believed NSC staff exempt from Boland amends.


8/18/88

Quayle led fight against plant closing bill, against school busing, for prayer in schools. His former aide Robert Owen was Ollie North’s sidekick in I-C. Will inherit ½ of $650m trust fund.

Of people who apply for drug treatment, 90% turned away for wait of 6-18 mos, so ½-2/3 give up.

During primaries, Bush called for “swift execution” of drug smugglers. Asked about due process, said: “I don’t know the answer to that. I am not a lawyer.”

Dan Quayle does not deny that his father might have used his inf to get him into the Nat Guard instead of VN. The trust fund, Quayle claims, will mature sometime in a couple of centuries. Quayle may have lied to Bush’s people about inf on the Nat Guard issue.
-The consensus seems to be that Bush made a very good speech (though the CNN newsreader was giggling), but everyone is talking about Quayle. The all-coward ticket may not go over well. Actually, the speech was pretty funny.


8/19/88

Smoking gun: the managing editor of one of Papa Quayle’s newspapers called the Nat Guard to get Quayle jumped up the line.

The navy report on Flight 655 admits that it emitted only one, civilian, signal rather than 2 conflicting. Navy is partly blaming Iran, partly unnamed lower-level grunts who will not be disciplined.

RR ordered State, DOD & CIA not to cooperate w/Congressional GAO investigation of Manuel Noriega’s drug activities.

R platform: “We support Congressional use of Article 3, Section 2 of the Constitution to restrict the jurisdiction of Federal courts.” Platform denounces ACLU for its challenging of tax exemptions of church groups engaged in politics.

Safire says choice of Quayle for control & that Bush prefers a man best equipped to help him win the presidency than the best person equipped to step in as prez.

Bush thinks the UN is bad because the USSR has a veto.

The Quayle record. Filibuster of measure requiring comps to notify workers exposed to toxics. Opposition to plan closing law. Against ERA & Civil Rights Restoration Act. Crusade for Daniel Manion to court. Critic of INF treaty, though voted for it; skeptical of any arms control. Opposed whistleblower protection for Pentagon & ban on DOD officials moving to contractors--1985-6 received $130,000 from military PACs. In 1982, alma mater De Pauw voted down honorary doctor of laws degree because he was such a lousy student, inc a D in poli sci, his major.


8/20/88

Article this week’s Nation on Flight 655 asks how it was that the position of a US warship was chosen so near civilian flight paths, when its presence was bound to provoke attacks.


8/21/88

Quayle somehow got into Indiana U Law though his college GPA was below 2.6, probably 2.1.


8/23/88

Papa Quayle says family connections used to get Dan his 1st job in Indiana atty gen office

PLO will take over pay of 20,000 in W Bank


8/24/88

At the convention, Bush promises 30m new jobs in 8 yrs. Quickly backed away from this.

I have hitherto ignored Quayle’s sex story, as being minor. In 1981, a former Playboy playmate lobbyist Paula Parkinson, said she had had several affairs w/Congressmen. Quayle was along on a golfing weekend. She now says he propositioned her.

After 4 yrs in the Nat Guard, Quayle working for pub info detachment, he scored well below ave. on journalism tests. And on initial aptitude tests.

Head of the Anti-Defamation L. tried to get Pat Robertson to denounce the anti-Semitism used by some opponents of film “Last Temptation of Christ.” He said the ADL should work to get the film banned instead of “shrilling blasting Christians for a problem caused by MCA [the distributor]”


8/25/88

Israel stepping up deportations--25 last week. And US is daring to criticize, though it wasn’t supposed to be public. Israel says its law takes precedence over internat, interesting considering why those laws were enacted. 60 have been deported this yr.

Alexander Cockburn says that R’s didn’t attack Bentsen because “they see the enemy and know it’s them.”

Last month, Bush stopped at Captive Nations banquet. In 1985, its head protested deportation of a Nazi concentration camp commandant, accusing Justice of collaborating w/KGB and “Jewish Zionists.” USSR under Stalin was “exclusively ruled by Marxist Zionist Jews.”
-More. Bush campaign manager Lee Atwater said he didn’t know if Dukakis would pick Jesse Jackson or Willie Horton (who is black & raped a woman while on release under furlough). Chris Henrick, Southern regional director of RNC, said: “We are going to show [Dukakis] is so far left he’s to the left of collard greens, black-eyed pees and strip-row cotton.”

There is just one phone line between N & S Korea

Bush says he would have signed the Mass. pledge of allegiance bill. “Any constitutional question that someone might raise should be decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.” It was, in 1943. But what does this say about the use of veto.

The whistleblower bill, Quayle lectured Barbara Boxer that it was “totally contrary to military discipline.”


8/26/88

Quayle’s official resumé overestimated by 2 yrs the time he spent in Indiana EPA. Quayle blames his staff.

Trying to limit the # of debates, Bush said wouldn’t be ready before Sept. 20. After 7½ years?


8/27/88

USSR expanding power of troops v. demonstrations--by unpublicized decree of July, which was known to require 10 days’ registration of demonstration w/real power to ban.

Quayle claims he does not remember his GPA.

Nevada Sup Court refused to dismiss a lawsuit charging a rock band’s lyrics w/getting someone to commit suicide

Israel closing Palestinian unions of W Bank professionals. These are the groups that license & set standards. They were associated w/Jordan.

Project Censored’s 1987 list:
1) Concentration of media ownership. Of 1,700 daily papers, 98% are local monopolies. Most of circulation held by 15 comps. Time Inc controls 40% magazine industry revenues.
2) Contra-CIA drug smuggling
3) Danger of nuclear accidents. Inc an NBC documentary on how wonderful nuclear power is in Fr & subsequent blackout on 2 Fr nuke accidents. NBC is owned by GE. Number of accidents increasing sine 3MI.
4) Gov secrecy. Justice Dept allowed Nixon to withdraw documents from his papers. RR could do same.
5) Biowarfare research at US universities. The research budget for diseases & toxins has increased 10X since 1981
6) Suggestions that Bush--more than RR--promoted the Iran initiative to stabilize falling crude oil prices
7) Biased coverage of Arias peace plan. Rights violations by Guatemala, Honduras, El S unreported, sources used were USG, contras, conservs
8) Dumping toxic wastes on 3 World
9) Torture in El Salvador. A report by El S Human Rights Commission smuggled out late 1986 showed systematic use of torture, US servicemen supervising
10) Shuttle will carry the Galileo probe with 49 pounds of plutonium
11) US aid to Honduras is military, while devt assistance dropped from 80% to 6% of aid 1979-85, while children starve
12) Shrinking diversity in gene pool as species become extinct. Makes crops vulnerable


8/28/88

Philippines VP Salvador Laurel launching a new opposition mvmt w/Enrile & Marcos’s party members


8/29/88

Romania says it will allow ethnic Hungarians to emigrate, not that they weren’t doing it already

Israel closes down W Bank institutions, press office, charitable society seem to be closing all ind bodies.

Because of court decision, PLO offices to UN will remain.

The Quayle record: voted against aid to farmers, freeze Soc Sec COLA, against raising min wage, for SA sanctions, voted for new taxes in 1986. 1982 for barring IRS denying exemptions to priv schools practicing racial discrim, against job training. 1985 voted to bar fed courts from considering cases involving prayer in schools, & for const amends for same & against abortion

Bush seems to have pulled nearly even w/Dukakis in the polls. Without Quayle (whose choice indicates to some that Bush doesn’t really want to be prez), who knows. Bush not as dead as is gen thought, or perhaps the media are trying to provoke interest by making it a close race. Bush not, I think, doing it with pledge but with tax scare. If nothing else, the primaries did show how well even a fool can do with money and organization


8/31/88

The VA cut 13,000 hospital beds while telling Congress that budget cuts have not hurt service