Banner Graphic, Volume 13, Number 80, Greencastle, Putnam County, 9 December 1982 — Page 2
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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, December 9,1982
Nuclear protester's reckless bluff ends in gunfire
WASHINGTON (AP) Consumed by a conviction that mankind is drifting toward nuclear extinction, a protester who held the Washington Monument hostage died in a final gesture tor a national dialogue on the nuclear weapons question.” Norman D. Mayer, a White House protester whom no one had much noticed, held police at bay, trapped nine people in the monument for several hours and forced the evacuation of thousands of capital workers in a reckless bluff Wednesday. He claimed to have dynamite in his white van, and he demanded that the newspapers and broadcasters devote 51 percent of their space and time to discussing the fear that obsessed him. After night fell, the siege ended and Mayer was dead. The 66-year-old Miami Beach handyman, still dressed in a blue jumpsuit, was shot in the head in a barrage of police gunfire after he started driving his van from the monument. He got only a few yards. “If the truck had become mobile, we would have had a moving time bomb in the city of Washington,” said Chief Lynn Herring of the U.S. Park Police, explaining the decision to open fire. The White House was six blocks away. Mayer, wounded, took down a flagpole. The van flipped onto its side. When police got to him, Mayer was still alive, still warning that the vehicle was loaded with TNT. Police handcuffed him to his steering wheel; minutes later he was dead.
No backtracking on missile plans: Shultz
I BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — ' Secretary of State George P. 1 Shultz is finding “no backing ‘down” by NATO’s European ; members on a decision to ■ deploy U.S. nuclear missiles in • Europe next year, a State S Department spokesman says. \ Speculation persisted that ; Tuesday’s House of Representatives vote against MX missile ; production might encourage opponents of deployment of U.S. ; missiles in Europe. The MX is ‘now under Senate consideration. ’ Opponents had been expected to argue that since the
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Americans seemed to be rejecting the the S9BB million MX system for deployment in their country, it would be unfair to ask the Europeans to accept 572
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“I said to him that it took a lot of guts to do what he was doing,” recalled the Associated Press reporter who acted as a day-long middleman between Mayer and police. “And he said: ‘lf you know you’re going to die tomorrow it doesn’t take guts.’” As it turned out, Mayer’s threat had been empty the van was loaded with nothing but routine personal effects and detonators with nothing to detonate. Police thought Mayer might have had an accomplice, and they hurled tear gas into the 555-foot monument, then made a cautious, fruitless search that ended after midnight. Mayer had acted alone, officials said. Aubrey Mayer said his brother wasn’t a leftist. “He’s more for ‘hey, give the little guy a break and get off my back.” Mayer had given Washington a scare; forced the city to take notice of his message, emblazoned on his truck: “No. 1 Priority, BAN Nuclear Weapons.” President Reagan shifted a luncheon to avoid the side of the White House that would be most likely to receive shrapnel if the truck had exploded. First Lady Nancy Reagan stayed away from that side of the executive mansion, too. Seven tourists and two Park Service workers, trapped in the monument until mid-afternoon, were allowed to leave. Thousands of government workers at the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce and the Bureau of Printing and
cruise and Pershing 2 missiles, set for deployment starting late in 1983. “There seems to be a good strong will to move ahead,”
Majority of Joint Chiefs opposed to decision on MX
WASHINGTON (AP) The majority of the Joint Chiefs of Staff advised President Reagan against his MX missile basing plan, fearing the president was being “pushed" into a decision before “technical uncertainties” were resolved, according to the nation's top military officer. Three of the five chiefs opposed the plan to bunch the missiles on a Wyoming plain, Gen. George Vessey Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday. “I don’t think you realize the degree of trouble the MX basing mode is in Sen. Sam Nunn told Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger at the same hearing. Vessey disclosed his colleagues’ opposition as resistance to the so-called "dense pack” basing plan stiffened. The House voted Tuesday to delete production money for the first MX missiles and the Senate will take up the question next week. There were predictions that the MX would fare better in the Republican-controlled Senate, but Vessey’s testimony was damaging. The general told the committee that the joint chiefs unanimously supported fielding the MX, but presented “differing views on the basing scheme” to Weinberger and Reagan. “Some of the chiefs were concerned that the president was being pushed into a final basing
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State Department spokesman John Hughes told reporters Wednesday. He was briefing them on preliminary talks before today’s opening of a two-
decision before all the technical uncertainties on the basing ..ystem were resolved,” Vessey told the committee. Pressed by Nunn, D-Ga., Vessey said three of the five members of the Joint Chiefs “recommended not proceeding with it at this time.” One of the three said he would recommend going ahead, “if it would help support the arms control negotiations.” At the hearing, some strong Pentagon supporters expressed unusually harsh criticism of the “dense pack" plan. “The public is getting the idea the whole thing is a boondoggle,” Sen. Henry M. Jackson, D-Wash., told Weinberger. Jackson told Weinberger the House vote stemmed from frustration with the many changes in basing plans. House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., D-Mass., however, said the setback for the MX resulted from “a poor product and a poor salesmanship job.” Weinberger, asked why he recommended “dense pack” to Reagan despite the opposition of a majority of the chiefs, said it was "the overriding necessity of having a response in the ground as quickly as possible” to a growing Soviet military threat. “Dense pack" is the latest of more than 30 basing modes considered since the MX program originated in 1973.
Engraving were sent home. Two Smithsonian museums closed. Subway trains pulled through the Smithsonian station without stopping. Air traffic veered away from the monument area. Constitution and In dependence Avenues, wide Washington thoroughfares, were shut, immobilizing traffic. Authorities tried to get a dialogue going. But Mayer ordered negotiators from the FBI and the Park Police off the grounds. However, he received William Thomas, a bearded fellow antinuclear protester who had befriended him during their vigils on the sidewalk in front of the White House. “He figures he’s lived his life pretty fully and wants to make a statement,” Thomas told a reporter later. “He doesn’t care about death.” And during five nerve-wracking visits Mayer talked to Steve Komarow, an Associated Press reporter who volunteered when Mayer said he wouldn’t negotiate with police but asked to see a reporter, someone single and with no dependents. Komarow climbed the monument hill with a white handkerchief in his hand. Nothing concrete resulted. The talks weren’t negotiations, just an attempt to open communications. “It’s up to the press, it’s up to the media,” Mayer told Komarow. “They have been pretending that we are not
day meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers. Shultz, who arrived here Wednesday to attend the session, quickly sought to reassure the European allies that the House vote against the MX would be reversed once Americans “understand fully the implications and the importance of the deployment of the MX missile.” The 16 NATO foreign ministers, including Shultz, are expected to reaffirm the 1979 decision to deploy American missiles in Europe
Missouri flood watchers hoping
WEST ALTON, Mo. (AP) - The haggard men wore expressions as dull as the drizzling December sky as they huddled around a fire sipping coffee and orange juice and eating ham sandwiches. “Don’t even mention rain,” said Don Steinhoff as he warmed his mud-caked hands Wednesday. “If it rains we’ve had it.” As Steinhoff spoke, floodwaters of the Missouri River were lapping at the top of a three-foot-high wall of sandbags which lay on the saturated levee the only thing protecting this farming community about 20
Banner-Graphic "It Waves For All" USPS 142-020) Consolidation of The Daily Banner Established 1850 The Herald The Daily Graphic Established 1883 Telephone 653-5151 Published daily except Sundays and holidays by LuMar Newspapers. Inc. at 100 North Jackson St., Greencastle, Indiana 46135. Entered in the Post Office at Greencastle, Indiana, as 2nd class mall matter under Act of March 7,1878. Subscription Rates Per Week, by carrier *I.OO Per Month, by motor route ‘4.55 Mail Subscription Rates R.R. In Rest of Rest of Putnam County Indiana U.S.A. 3 Months *13.80 *14.15 *17.25 6 Months *27.60 *28.30 *34.50 1 Year ‘55.20 *56.60 *69.00 Mail subscriptions payable in advance . . . not accepted in town and where motor route service Is available. Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all the local news printed in this newspaper.
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One of the smellest suspects ever photographed for a mug shot by Providence, R. 1., police has been tentatively identified as a cayman. The creature reportedly
miles northwest of St. Louis. Flooding in Missouri already has forced an estimated 25.000 people to flee their homes since late last week. But West Alton has special problems it is located on a peninsula between the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, just below the confluence of the Mississippi and the Illinois rivers. Residents have stacked nearly three miles of sand-filled plastic and burlap bags in fourhigh layers on the Missouri levee hoping to stay the flooding. The Missouri National Guard has been helping local officials
Public service for draft resist er
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - A student who refused to register for the draft, but was described as a “special person” by the judge who sentenced him to two years of public service, says he won’t mind “working for the rountry.” And the U.S. attorney who prosecuted Enten Eller, the first resister convicted since mandatory draft registration resumed two years ago, said he was satisfied with the sentence, but feels jail would be a better deterrent to others. Eller, 21, said he refused to register for religious, not political, reasons. He was ordered Wednesday to perform
threatened every day of our lives with annihilation." He said cheerfully: “Well, you’ve got the gist of it. See you tomorrow.” ; rIn a printed leaflet that was distributed by the authorities, Mayer spelled out his grievance against the arms race. ; - “The world is threatened every day of our lives with manmade annihilation,” it said. “It’s a disgrace to decerToy, civilization and reason." And his solution 9 “A national dialogue on the nuclear weapons question asjhe first order of business on an agenda of every organization inithe U.S.A. Churches, businesses, fraternal, unions, sports, etc., no associations excepted. “Local state and national elected bodies and bureaucracies must comply. National and local media must carry these discussions daily, 51 percent of their time and space. The book, ‘Fate of the World,' to be the guide.” He apparently meant “Fate of the Earth, the best-selling book by write. Jonathan Schell, describing how all human.life ultimately would vanish in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Police learned Mayer had a long record of arrests for prowling in 1949, assault and battery in 1957, drug trafficking in 1976, passing out literature on campuses in violation of college regulations in 1979.
crawled out of the pocket of a man being frisked and bit detective John Lopez, who booked the biter and put it behind bars at the local zoo. (AP Wirephoto).
to the south, in Herculaneum, reinforce an earth dam needed to protect a trailer park. Even further south, in Ste. Genevieve, levees protecting the old section of town were holding, although about 300 homes on the outskirts are partially underwater and have been evacuated. Levees also were holding on Kaskaskia Island, a farming community in the river near Ste. Genevieve that was devastated by a flood in 1973. “My kids asked me yesterday if Santa Claus is coming by boat,” joked Jim Grunwaldt,
public service without pay for two years at a Veterans Administration hospital or similar institution. U.S. District Judge James Turk said the soft-spoken student may wait to report for work until he graduates in June. Eller could have been sentenced to six years in prison. “I don’t mind working for the country, which is working for the government,” said Eller, an honors student in mathematics and physics at Bridgewater College in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. When convicted Aug. 17, Eller was given three years’ probation, provided he
one of the volunteer sandbaggers. “If we hold,” responded Steinhoff, “it’ll be Santa Claus coming early.” Damage estimates in Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois have already topped the half-billion dollar mark. Twenty people have died and four are missing in floods that began w-ith last week's torrential rains. Winter returned to other parts of the country and fierce winds cut a wide swath through Southern California on Wednesday, uprooting trees and disrupting power for up to 170,000 households.
registered with the Selective Service System by Nov. 15 and performed community service. “I’m sorry I did not comply with the conditions of probation,” Eller told Turk during the 13-minute hearing Wednesday. “But I felt I had no other choice ... I think it’s clear that if people are sometimes very honestly trying to pursue a course, sometimes it’s not right to put them in prison. ’ ’ Turk agreed, saying, -T4 wasn’t going to give himlti prison sentence. He’s just Afferent. He’s a very special person.”