September 1989

9/1/89

US will not have dipl contact w/the new appointed Panamanian gov. Says there is no gov. This means won’t take their candidate for administrator of Canal 1990.
-Sanctions have actually been relaxed by Treasury to extent that Panama received >½ the $250m would have gotten w/out sanctions
-US pressuring Israel to order out of P. a former intelligence agent acting as Noriega’s security adviser

Speaking of dictators, Qaddafi’s been in power 20 yrs today. Ortega there to support him, damn it

Reagan’s former physician said he didn’t realize AIDS more serious than measles until 1985. When Rock Hudson d.

Bush supports another referendum in Puerto Rico, to be held Jun91. It will not be held according to internat law, which would require removal of all troops & release of pol prisoners before the vote


9/2/89

Opposition in Nicaragua choose Mrs Violetta Chamorro, famous widow & publisher of La Prensa, to run for prez


9/3/89

And Ortega still in Libya
-Chamorro hasn’t run for anything before. So look at her VP, Virgilio Godoy Reyes, also a member of the 1st post-Somoza gov, to be the real power. He is a lawyer & sociology prof who tried to assassinate Somoza senior in 1956


9/4/89

Bloomingdales talking about opening in Moscow


9/5/89

Bush’s 1st nat speech today on drugs. Message: more of the same. 30% of the package goes to treatment, prevention, ed. 70% law enforcement

Barney Frank not too badly hit. By the way, all that was before he came out. But next yr will be redistricting, and Mass. will lose a seat, so we’ll see.

In OMB’s cost-benefit analysis of rules, a human life is now worth $208,000

When Bush refused to rule out kidnapping Noriega, it may have been scare campaign. Last month, conducted maneuvers that looked like rehearsal. Coming ashore on the causeway leading to his island w/tanks, jets, copters, 1,000+ soldiers. Gave half-hr notice. No wonder he wants UN forces.


9/6/89

Wm Bennett on the drug plan says that all that law enforcement will cut supply and force people into treatment. Then admits treatment won’t be there.

A court of appeals found the Star Tribune & St Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch liable for breaking an oral contract, promise of confidentiality. This was a bit of character assassination in an election’s last stages.


9/7/89

Bush’s plan for paying for drug war will cut $40m from juvenile justice & delinquency prevention. Also screwed are pub housing (the money to go to “clean up” housing projects.)

NYT comments that Bush puts no-tax pledge above drugs.

Fidel Castro Jan89 to party leader: “Those inside the Communist Party who show themselves in favor of perestroika and glasnost are of the same clique as those dissidents out there and of counterrevolutionaries. We are not going to tolerate this deviationism.”

SA elections: Nat Party lost votes to Conservs & Demo. Party, claims victory for reform. Conservs did well Transvaal, OSF
-Turnout for Inds & Coloured Houses 1/2-1/3 that for white house.

Poindexter on trial, says RR told him to lie to Congress on I-C

UC Berkeley might lose up to $147m in fed grants if doesn’t adopt Bush’s anti-drug policies. Bennett says drug ed. programs “devoid of moral judgment” & stimulate drug consumption.

New Polish cabinet. Of 22, 9 Solidarity, 4 CP, 7 to minor parties. CP will get defense, internal affairs, transport, foreign trade. Solidarity all key econ ministries, Labor. Foreign went to an ind, a pro-Solidarity academic & Cath. layman. Peasant Party gets agric, health, etc

DOE to reopen the nuclear reactor at Savannah River next yr w/out checking for cracks & w/out environ. impact statement

US gov files suit against Oakland’s nuclear free zone.


9/8/89

Salvadoran FMLN to cut combat, stopping attacks on elections & phones, mines,, booby traps

SA gov accuses Tutu & Boesak of lying when they said 29 were killed on election day.

The Bush drug policy will not cost $7.9b. It would actually require another $5-10b from the states for prisons alone


9/9/89

The new Polish PM says he will demand reparations from USSR for WW2 & repatriation of Poles deported by Stalin


9/10/89

Sen. Biden said planes w/drugs should be shot down

Hungary opens border w/Austria to allow 7,000 E Gers to leave. E Ger pissed.

Lech Walesa says the decision to form a gov was a mistake, but no other choice.

Arab-on-Arab violence, SA-necklace-style, is growing in Israel

Presidential directive allows military advisers in Latin America to “secure” areas outside their bases to train local forces in drug war.


9/12/89

Congress passes the unconst. flag-desecration statute 380-138. Fine and/or 1 yr in jail

Ed Koch lost the D. primary for NY major to (black) David Dinkins

Dept Director of the SWAPO election campaign, a white lawyer, a possible future justice min, assassinated

Colombia says US military aid was all wrong, designed for conventional warfare


9/13/89

Hidden in an increase of Soviet refugee quota, US will rule on refugee applications in Moscow, but not review those outside Moscow from people leaving on Israeli visas

SA police to stop using whips on protesters

David Dinkins said New Yorkers voted their hopes not their fears. Curiously, this was the slogan of the Demo Party in SA


9/14/89

Bombs placed in 4 Br book stores owned by Viking--Rushdie’s publisher

Sec State Baker wants to give $3m to campaign Violeta Chamorro in Nicaragua through Nat Endowment for Democracy

House rejects Helms Amend on art 264-153 (sponsored by Dana Rohrabacher, who would like to abolish the NEA altogether).

Yugoslav CP says it will give up monopoly on power.


9/16/89

Bush’s Clean Air bill would reduce tailpipe emissions but barely kjeep up w/expected new cars


9/17/89

Hungary’s deputy foreign min placed decision to allow E Gers to leave in context of joining W Eur. This will do it more good in W than harm in E

Barney Frnak once accused anti-abortion forces of believing that life begins at conception and ends at birth.


9/18/89

The US refugee coordinator says Soviet Jews can “always go to Israel or return to Russia.”

Bush decides not to finance Chamoro through Nat Endowment for Democracy directly, though still registration campaigns, monitoring etc. Will encourage others (Eur, Latin Am parties, foundations) to contribute

Rockwell Corp threatens to close the Rocky Flats weapons plant unless guaranteed immunity from laws governing waste disposal. Actually, they seem to have no means of disposal that’s legal


9/19/89

FMLN said would stop hostilities if US halted aid to Salvador

E Ger & Czech. are seizing passports & visas to stop emigration

Gorbachev insists Baltic republics entered USSR in 1940 (not annexed).

Deng Xiaping, who has chosen his successor, fortunately not Li Peng, says “We should follow the policy of leniency to those who confess their crimes and severity to those who refuse to confess.”

New Argentine prez Menem will pardon ex-generals & admirals facing trial & later perhaps those in jail


9/21/89

Hungary restores relations w/Israel
-Will get most-favored-nation status

Pravda printed an ugly almost satiric piece about Yeltsin’s tour of US, suggests it’s a drunken spree: “for Yeltsin, America was a feast day, a theater stage, a bar 5,000 km. long. For America, Yeltsin is a wonderful new toy, a doll with a typical Russian face that says things no Russian ever dared to say before.” Yeltsin called it slander. His speaking fees go to Soviet AIDS effort.

Hungary suspending another agreement w/E Ger to give refugees their cras & other possessions

World Bank says income in Af down from $570 per cap 1980 to $440 1989. Somalia down to $130


9/23/89

NYT econ columnist comments that US destroyed coffee price agreements, reducing Colombia’s earning $400m, also blocked cut flower exports. Says US forcing Colombians to choose between drugs & poverty. And Bush refused to reinstate a coffee-export program

Baker defends foreign policy, attacked by George Mitchell as nostalgic for Cold War, by citing approval ratings

Former Greek PM Papendreao will stand trial for wiretapping, by vote of Parl

In the early 1980s, ambassador to Colombia Lewis Tambs (later of Iran-Contra fame) tried, or did, to use “malaria control” as cover for spraying Agent Orange on coca crops

Gorbachev purged 5 rightists from Politburo, inc 3 of the 12 voting members inc Ukraine party chief & the former KGB heard who’s been sec for agric Now last member from the Brezhnev era is... Gorbachev

Bush proposed $9m for Nicaraguan election $4m for non-partisan technical support--maybe, since some of it would go to opposition groups. Baker talks of levelling the playing field. $5m would go to parties, newspapers, unions, business & pro. groups


9/24/89

Pravda forced to apologize to Yeltsin. Pravda will be investigated by Parl cmte for such smears

Tenn. court granted temp custody of frozen embryos to the women in the divorce case, finding human life beginning at conception.

In Bush’s drug speech this month, he held up a vial of crack bought in Lafayette Park. In fact, they had to draw the dealer a map to get there, failed to arrest him, and spent $2,400 of our money.

Bush’s choice for Office of Gov Ethics had ethics problems in his FBI check. This was a post promised to be filled quickly & well. He is a fundy Baptist who taped phone conversations & called his relig opponents heretics.


9/25/89

Bush proposes to cut chemical weapons 80% @ USSR to equal level. In fact, Bush is just destroying old chemical weapons, w/$300m for new ones in this budget.
-Pentagon agrees no need to cut binary weapons plans. US already obliged by law to destroy 90% of chem weapons by 1997

AZT is not administered to children because Burroughs Wellcome has not applied for an under-12 license.

USSR will dismantle the Krasnoyarsk radar system unilterally.

Not one of Bennett’s 50-odd drug recommendations relate to control or detection of guns.

An internal agreement permitting oil drilling, etc Antarctica scuttled by Australia & Fr, inf by Jacques Cousteau.


9/26/89

Pierce, w/cameras off, claimed the 5th, the 3rd occasion for a Cabinet sec to do so (others were during Tea Pot Dome)

UN troops are out of Cambodia

Salvadoran gov failed to join the FMLN’s cease-fire, which is now over

“Evolution works on the Peter principle.”


9/27/89

Bush refused USSR counter-offer to eliminate chem weapons

At election last yr 25% said hadn’t heard enough about Quayle to have opinion. Now, 45%.

Slovenia approves a const giving it right to secede & control Yug. army w/in the republic


9/28/89

House votes to cut capital gains tax 239-190

Ferdinand Marcos d.

Br extends refuge to HK people if want it, to those “essential to HK’s future stability and prosperity.”

Johannesburg eliminates last bits of petty apartheid in pools, buses, rec. centers

Israel convicts a radio broadcaster of meeting w/Arafat

FHA mortgage insurance had record loss of $4.2b 1988. FHA head reported only $588m

University of Calif. bans “fighting words” on all campuses.


9/29/89

USSR strips Brezhnev of Order of Victory, because he did not deserve it.

In a wonderfully nostalgic mood, China revives model workers