February 1987

2/1/87

Philippines elections on a new const. Marcos in exile accuses Aquino of massive electoral fraud. Now that is chutzpah


2/2/87

During last week’s Philippines coup attempt, Marcos’ mother spirited away from hospital. Negotiations between Fidel Ramos & the rebel leaders broadcast over tv. & Paul Anka was broadcast to the rebels
-Many participants involved in July’s coup attempt, when their punishment was to do 30 press-ups
-The left-wing Bayan party’s right to contest the May congressional election refused
-Marcos had chartered a 747, yet. Not bad for someone pleading poverty. He was stopped. “Now I am being treated like a prisoner.” Poor baby, can’t even start a coup. Get government off dictators’ backs, I say!

On Miranda, Sup Court recently decided that rules not breached if fuzz omit to tell suspect of what he is to be accused

Scotland Yard raided the Scottish offices of BBC & took all film of a series of programs on official secrecy.


2/3/87

Gorbachev has proposed that party secretaries as high up as bosses of republics be elected by secret ballot & that the cmtes which elect them be able to put up more than 1 candidate. Economist is skeptical because policy flows from top down. Also thinks there should be a ltd job tenure

Marcos avoided testifying in Virginia by claiming poor health. He has just had to check into a hospital to prove it

Brecht in 1953 uprising in E Berlin: “The government has lost the confidence of the people. So it is necessary to elect a new people.”

Congress overrode RR’s vote of a Clean Water Bill 401-26

Pat Buchanan resigned from White House to be an outside agitator

US broke the Soviet moratorium today w/a nuke test 2 dys earlier than expected (because) a resolution against it was scheduled in the House tomorrow

SA press, on Oliver Tambo’s trip to US, was allowed to quote Tambo supporting violent resistance but not on conciliatory or demo goals

Cabinet has decided that AIDS ed. should stress to young that abstinence is safest. Of course, condoms are more practical. “Value based,” this is called. This is not a health policy but a puritan one.

Oral Roberts is asking for money or god will take him

Israeli Defense Ministry approved arms sales to Iran ($50m) 2 mos before 1st US request

Gov officials were aware of a plan of private arms dealers to sell huge amounts of arms, inc 39 Amer. fighters, to Iran. No one know whether it went through


2/4/87

“A copy of the universe is not what is required of art, one of the damned things is ample.” Rebecca West

We have a confession in the assassination of Chile’s ambassador to US Orlando Letelier in Washington 1976


2/5/87

US refused to sign an attempt at nuclear-free zone in Pacific (inc Oz & NZ)--says nuke-free zones undermine deterrence

The 1981 sale of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia in exchange for aid to anti-communist groups inc Contras

Over the weekend, the Philippines voted 80% for the new const


2/8/87

Scotland Yard raided New Statesman on a report on a spy satellite. The gov tried unsuccessfully to prevent that BBC footage on the project being shown to Commons


2/9/87

Ex-NSC adviser McFarlane attempted suicide w/valium

Admin is close to a new interpretation of the 1972 ABM treaty to allow Star Wars testing. This is the “broad” or “legally-correct interpretation”


2/10/87

The NRC is trying to pass a rule (not law) that would allow nuke plants built even if states or locals refuse to participate in planning evacuation

“You politicians have remained professionals only because the voters have remained amateurs.” -- “State of the Union”

It is independently estimated that SA last yr detained 25,000 under emergency laws, 60% released w/out charge, 10,000 or so under 18

The State Dept awarded a $276,186 secret contract in 1986 to a PR firm working w/Ollie North to drum up support for the Contras. An ad budget of $1m & paid for Contras leaders to come to US to lobby. This is probably not legal--the gov can’t spend fed money to inf Congress. The tv ads linked Nicaragua to Qadaffi & attacked congresscritters voting against

The immigration law, again. Illegals can apply for amnesty as of May 6, but penalties against employers began last Nov. 6. So for 6 mos, these people may not be able to work...


2/11/87

Arturo Cruz quit the Contra coalition. Is he giving up opposition altogether? Unclear.

US exploded another bomb. Soviets still maintaining their moratorium but “beginning to lose patience.”


2/13/87

USSR releases 42 dissidents. Said to be the largest release since 1953 de-Stalinization

USSR considering legal reforms

The Vatican newspaper said practice of handing out condoms to halt AIDS absurd, preferring an end to homosexuality


2/14/87

The Soviet pardon is at 140

Sikh religion’s heads excommunicated the moderate elected Sikh leader of Punjab

The INS has decided that aliens resident here do not have free speech. 8 Palestinians will be supported. When they talked to a lawyer, were put in shackles. Their crime: belonging to a Marxist (rad Palestinian) organiz

In Eur, for a given rate of unemployment, relatively few people are out of work for a relatively long time compared to US
-In US, only 1/3 of those w/out work are entitled to unemp benefits


2/16/87

Adolfo Calero, Contra leader, resigned from the (CIA) umbrella group, but will not give up command of his troops

The ambassador to Costa Rica resigned, accusing Elliott Abrams of McCarthyism.

The SA censorship inc anything: against compulsory draft; opposing any member of Gov in role of maintaining pub order; boycott; stayaway, “alternative structures.”


2/17/87

SA’s Business Day talks about the election: the Nat Party will attempt to maintain a “mandate,” supposedly for reform, against the Western World, which wants same. The PFP will be denounced as rads, who had demanded reform for yrs

There is a slight problem w/a history text approved in CA: “If the pickaninnies ran naked it was generally from choice, and when the white boys had to put on shoes and go away to school they were likely to envy the freedom of their colored playmates.” “Slave owners were the worst victims of the system” because of shirkers & fears of slave revolts. The author is a Bircher & former aide to Jedgar Hoover

The admin has granted Israel the status of a non-NATO ally (like SK & Japan)


2/18/87

Norway, which supplied Israel w/heavy water, wants the Internat Atomic Energy Agency to investigate its use

Those Palestinians arrested (see 2/14) are charged w/advocating overthrow of US gov under McCarran-Walter Act--& advocating World Communism. Accused of possessing “certain magazines.”


2/19/87

Arturo Cruz will not resign. Machiavelli lives.

Reports say that RR gave 2 different stories to the Tower Commission on when he approved arms sales to Iran. 1st said he approved sales (confirming McFarlane) to that he didn’t until Jan86 (Regan)

US ends 1981 sanctions against Poland

Those 8 Palestinians released on bail. The judge refused to hear secret gov testimony on how dangerous they were

Mario Cuomo will not run for prez

The man chosen to replace Buchanan as White House Communications officer was evidently a member of a Nazi youth group at age 10, in Germany. A good replacement

Br gov trying to get comps to abandon national pay-bargaining

Fr plans to start making chemical weapons; will join US as only W power doing so

Eur Parl condemned Br for infringement of press by raiding BBC in Scotland

What is retired Gen. Singlaub, Contra-funder-at-large, doing in the Philippines? Trying to create an anti-Communist force?

USSR says will allow internat inspections of its chemical weapons stockpiles

There is a bill to end ideology & homosexuality as legal grounds for excluding foreigners (incidentally excludes those who practice or advocate polygamy).

It has been suggested that something called Project Democracy, supposed to be non-CIA aid to democracy elsewhere, was used by Ollie North & NSC for “a parallel foreign policy apparatus.”

Sen. Foreign Relations Cmte voted to halt Contra funds


2/20/87

Transkei sent soldiers into Ciskei for attack on presidential palace. Ciskei had announced expulsion of all Transkaians by August

The CIA is revising its estimates of the size of Soviet nuke tests down 20-30%, bringing into q claims that Soviets violated treaties limiting size of tests

US & Br vetoed UN mandatory SA sanctions


2/21/87

A court gave back Meir Kahane’s US citizenship. If taking a seat in a foreign country’s parl is not an act of relinquishing citizenship, I don’t know what is

Arturo Cruz accepted Ollie North money, because he didn’t want CIA money!

US & Egypt made plans all last yr for a “pre-emptive” attack on Libya

Brazil suspends payment of interest on its debt


2/22/87

SA has appointed its 1st non-white judge, a formerly banned secretary of the South African Indian Congress

There was a 5-yr clandestine effort to kill Qadaffi. And last yr, 9 of 18 planes sent last April to bomb Libya were trying to get him

INS has a white paper mapping out concentration camps in Louisiana for Palestinian supporters


2/23/87

Israel asked US to stop giving refugee status to Soviet Jews

Ethiopia becomes the People’s Demo Republic of Ethiopia

1986 North urged State & Justice to seek leniency for a Honduran general convicted of plotting to assassinate its prez 1984--financed by $10m of cocaine sales to US. Why? Because had helped in aiding contras? It is suggested that US engineered the plot, then scuttled it to curry favor w/Prez Suazo. North’s letter talks of Honduras & US losing Gen. Rosa’s “valuable services.”

SA Defence Force has its 75th anniversary: The theme: never defeated in 75 yrs


2/24/87

Congressional panels looking already at immunity for secondary people in Gippergate

The nation’s governors are working on “welfare reform,” which means forcing those on welfare to work

The contradiction in Reagan’s testimony on whether he approved arms sales before or after they were shipped has been figured out: he really can’t remember
-Defended it by asking who can remember what they were doing on August 8, 1985.

Meese thinks drug tests are 100% accurate

Ollie North is trying to kill the special investigation in court

Br proposing more restrictions on trade unions: ending ability to discipline members black-legs, ending the closed shop, forcing leader elections


2/25/86

It is calculated that if Amers. stopped buying foreign products, real incomes would go down 20%

Some loosening has been going on in Yugoslavia, of the same sort as in Ch. & Russia, but from below. Slovenia seems moving towards developing opposition “parties,” including Greens. More journalistic freedom in Serbia
-Although for comparison, Greens also have much latitude in Hungary & Cath church in Poland

There is no widely used singular of British--Brit, Briton, Britisher...it is defeated by nat identity--English, Scottish, Welsh, Irisih


2/27/86

Shultz criticized Sen. Christopher Dodd for meetings w/Cent. Amer. heads of state & excluding the Amer. ambassadors. Dodd says he was told by the ambassador to Honduras of a Shultz directive prohibiting members of Congress meeting priv w/foreign leaders--Shultz denies

Chief of Staff Regan, finally finally, fired in favor of Sen. Howard Baker
-Pretty funny, when you consider he’s the one who popularized the question “What did the president know & when did he know it?”

Sup Court decided the accidental search of a wrong apt. on a search warrant ok because it was a reasonable mistake

The Tower Commission report on Gippergate came out yesterday. Blamed RR’s mgmt style, his advisers. Adds also that there was a cover-up but doesn’t blame RR. Failed to say that NSC should be changed in any way

USSR held their 1st nuclear test


2/28/87

Meir Kahane had his mailing privileges revoked after sending letters to Arabs telling them to leave Israel or face war. He said the move was a vote “against Judaism.”