August 1989

8/1/89

Congress gives tv networks an anti-trust exemption to discuss reduction of violence

US arms sales increased 60% 1988 over 1987, USSR dropped 47%

Sen. killed, in cmte, nomination of Wm Lucas to be asst atty gen. Mostly on grounds of inexperience
-Strom Thurmond says we must give opportunities to blacks. Alan Simpson says Lucas knows all about discrimination because he’s black

US says, Sihanouk to the contrary, Khmer Rouge must not participate in gov. Ch. says it must

AIDS program for schools abroad granted $3.5m to 2 Orthodox Jewish schools in Israel & an institute to train teachers for the settlements.

Nat Repub Congressional campaign targeting D’s who voted against the NEA cut as supporting porn

Under Bush’s awful pollution plan is a risk/benefit test. Any risk permissible if profit high enough. EPA would only be required to regulate ½ factories emitting toxic chemicals


8/2/89

SA blacks sent 200 blacks to whites-only hospitals for treatment. They were treated.

“The Killing Fields” to open in Cambodia

Poland got its CP PM 237 to 173, 10 abstaining. Needed 211. Gen. Kiszczak associated w/marital law

US pressuring Cent. Americans to reject Nicaragua’s demand for disarming & disbanding of Contras. Coincidentally, none of the $85m appropriated for Honduras has been released.

US has yet to ask Israel to release Sheik Obeid.

House stopped move to exclude illegal aliens from census for purposes of reapportionment.

Measure in House to bar D.C. paying for abortions failed 206-219. Bush says he will veto D.C. appropriations if does not ban abortion spending.


8/3/89

Soviet monthly Novy Mir says Gorbachev losing popularity because trying to be reformer & party boss, “Luther and Pope” at same time

Nicaragua suspends draft until after Feb. elections

Pierce himself responsible for many of those decisions, contrary to his imputation, to help friends, allies, R Cong. candidates facing tough elections, etc. Was pressured by R Congresscritters, inc more than dozen letters from Thurmond. NYT says he spent all his time on thank-you notes & other personal letters & writing to journalists of neg. articles. Evidently, Pierce was campaigning for Sup Court


8/4/89

Bophutatswana has sealed off 2 towns not willing to be incorporated, & banned civil rights organizs Black Sash & Transvaal Mutual Action Cmte. Neither town abuts Boph. The town heads were arrested March under Boph. law.

Cuba bans 2 Soviet mags as too bourg & fascinated w/Amer. way of life


8/5/89

When Senate 1st investigated HUD early 1988, office hid pol. favoritism by omitting R’s from list
-Former Asst Sec HUD Thos Demery says after he got his job Jun87, Pierce gave him message to “know who’s behind a project.” for moderate rehab

Fed scientists (Interior Dept) were ordered not to testify at pub hearings on offshore drilling where they would have opposed it

SA police use teargas to stop people visiting one of the black men in white hospitals

Gingrich labels Rep. Bill Alexander “almost irrational” for wanting to add 200 more charges against him.

Fed Appeals Court says journalists (New Yorker in this case) can make up quotes, in this case splicing an interview w/Jeffrey Masson calling himself an “intellectual gigolo” & help make him look like a fool


8/7/89

David Lange resigns as NZ PM for health reasons

There is a custody dispute in a divorce case over frozen embryos. Father doesn’t want them used. At the least, he should be treated as a sperm donor to avoid financial liability for the baby. There should be advanced contracts.

When EPA said would ban asbestos by 1996, head Wm Reilly said this “should not be seen as a signal to other nations, especially developing nations, that use of these products should be discontinued.”

Pentagon giving up on the space shuttle, closing its $5b+ space complex, disbanding secret cadre of 32 astronauts

John Hinkley says a waiting per. would have stopped him shooting RR


8/8/89

Carter will head the observer team for Nicaraguan elections

Early 1989, Iran broke a CIA network in military, had been feeding it false info for months. CIA’s Iran COS works from Frankfurt. April, Iran put these agents on tv.

Solidarity trying to get small parties to help it oust PM, get a Solidarity one

Justice has plan to prosecute leakers of info for theft of gov prop. Will be exercised selectively & journalists would be subpoenaed.

Energy Sec Watkins: “It was beautiful. We walked on the beach [Long Beach as a kid] and got oil on our feet and we thought that was good because it was helpful to the economy of the state of California.”

Estonian Parl passed law requiring voters & candidates fulfill a residency requirement (2 yrs in district or 5 in Estonia to vote, 5 & 10 for candidates). Russian workers are striking in protest. Estonians are c.60%. Would disenfranchise 150,000

E Robert Wallach convicted of inf peddling in Wedtech case.

Japanese Lib Dems picked Toshiki Kaifu as a sort of interim PM until the senior members’ stink goes down. Upper house voted for socialist leader instead, 1st disagreement since 1948. Lower house has precedence. Kaifu not a reform candidate, so more of same.

Canada’s Sup Court didn’t let a man stop his girlfriend having abortion

New NZ PM says nuclear policy stands

PLO wants to join Geneva Conventions. State Dept arguing against


8/10/89

Justice Dept investigating 20 universities inc Harvard & Chicago under anti-trust for price-fixing & on financial aid. Tuition is increasing 5-9% this yr. Ivy schools meet to decide on financial aid.


8/11/89

Missouri law says life begins at conception. A pregnant inmate asserts her fetus is unlawfully detained.

New Israeli rules increase amount of time for detention w/out trial from 6 to 12 mos.

USSR will pay farmers in part in foreign currency to spend as they will

The Polish Peasant Party will support Solidarity against CP PM’s cabinet

Student Pell Grants will be conditional on just-say-no pledges

A US commission says SA placing obstacles to fairness in Namibia’s Nov elections. No secrecy, w/voter’s reg # on the ballots. Illiterate voters would be assisted by SA polling officials. The SA administrator Pienaar trying to downgrade the constituent assembly, phrasing its proposals as “requests” or “recommendations” to him

The Polish Senate condemns 1968 Prague invasion, unanimously.


8/14/89

New students at Beijing university will be required to concurrently attend military academy & grads required to work a yr or 2 in villages or factories before grad school. Beijing U will cut enrollment from 2,000 to 800 w/applicants tested for pol reliability. Nationwide, out of 30,000 to 610,000 & suspend at Beijing entry into history, phil, internat relations & public admin

P W Botha, who’s been getting increasingly bitchy, has finally been forced to resign.

Polish PM also forced to resign. A new ministry may be formed by the tiny Peasants’ Party


8/15/89

Bush refused to rule out kidnapping Noriega to bring him to justice

SA pulls 1200 counter-insurgency troops back to bases in Namibia.

US is letting Iran sue it in World Court over shooting down plane, reserving right to reject decision


8/16/89

Solidarity names Lech Walesa PM

A Costa Rican congressional commission concluded shipment of cocaine through CR to US to obtain funds for Contras was est by Ollie North w/CF former pub security director


8/17/89

USSR Presidium voided Estonia’s election law

Dipl immunity did not stop a US court awarding a large divorce settlement

1st publication of Trotsky in USSR since 1929. Jan89 1st mention that Kremlin behind his death

Carter will try to mediate the end of Ethiopian civil war

A Missouri judge acquitted Operation Rescue types of trespassing, accepting argument that it was necessary to save lives. This makes sense under the life-begins-at-conception law. CA rejected similar plea.


8/18/89

Dan Quayle, head of the manned space commission, said the “canals” show there is water, hence oxygen, hence a breathable atmosphere on Mars


8/20/89

US has been complaining for yrs about USSR ground-based anti-satellite lasers. Last month, Amers finally visited the facility cited

Poland will have a Solidarity PM, Tadeusz Mazowiecki. CP will still have defense & interior. M. is a Cath layman, an editor. Was in the Cath Pax group who backed Gomulka 1956, built bridges intellectuals/union 1980

Ch. complains Br is breaking agreement about HK by proposing Ch. troops not enter HK after 1997.


8/21/89

Turkey has stopped taking Bulgarian Turks, closed off border to force Bulgaria to negotiate. 310,000 have entered Turkey since May, 20% of Bulgarian Turks. Bulg. say they’re all tourists and can come back any time

Polish CP demands more cabinet positions than defense & interior. Walesa told them not to push their luck.
-Soviet press not being alarmist or anything, lays it to loss of support by Polish Cp because failed to support econ crisis

Soviet Jews now transiting to Israel through Budapest. Significance for freedom is not clear


8/22/89

Huey Newton, a founder of Black Panthers, shot dead in Oakland


8/23/89

A senior Ch. Politburo member calls for a purge of those involved in pro-demo mvmt. Still trying to keep all politics within the party

A commission of the Lithuanian Parl said the 1940 annexation invalid
-Polish CP Politburo also denounces Hitler-Stalin Pact


8/24/89

HK will stop floggings.

Insurers are discriminating against artists & others in the culture industry because of AIDS

When US froze Panama’s assets, Elliott Abrams engineered diversion of that $ for covert action against Noriega at time Congress not willing to fund the plan.
-From this fund, admin authorized release of $750,000 per mo. to Delvalle ostensibly to run embassy & consulates. Some of this was definitely diverted, as admitted by ambassador Juan Sosa
-Abrams also got another $1m, State Dept taking responsibility, w/out explaining reason to Treasury (May88). Abrams claims not to remember this. Much of this may have gone to opposition’s chief military leader, possibly for a coup, which was discussed w/him


8/25/89

Colombia has begun a civil war w/its drug dealers, who have literally dec war. US to send $65m in aid, inc Hueys & other heavy weaponry. Considering how much the gov has been infiltrated, effectiveness strikes me as unlikely.
-Drug dealers’ assassination squads supervised by Israeli mercenaries.


8/26/89

Rep Barney Frank, gay, hired a male prostitute who ran a ring out of Frank’s apt. It’ll be interesting to see how paying a prost. will play out politically.


8/29/89

Solidarity to appeal for 6 mo moratorium on strikes

Bombings by drug cartel against Colombian gov inc of state-owned liquor stores


8/30/89

The annual People for the American Way report on school censorship says school libraries (not just curricula) targetted. And were successful ½ the time, esp in W, inc CA.

The Economist notes that Israeli Prez Hertzog plagiarized from them in his new book

Moldavia to replace Russia as official language, return to Roman script

Amnesty Int says Ch. executes in secret


8/31/89

Russell Jacoby wrote on failure of leftists who entered academy. For many, “academic freedom meant nothing more than the freedom to be academic.”

US to send 50-100 military personnel to Colombia

Testimony to a Fed grand jury last Oct. by Deborah Gore Dean about White House ties to the HUD grant selection process, asking close attention to specific projects