Banner Graphic, Volume 14, Number 293, Greencastle, Putnam County, 17 August 1984 — Page 2

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The Putnam County Banner Graphic, August 17,1984

Controversy politically motivated?

FBI said

WASHINGTON (AP) Agriculture Secretary John R. Block says he has nothing to hide from a reported FBI investigation into his farmland transactions and suggests that some of the controversy about his finances has been politically motivated. Block responded Thursday to earlier reports in Minnesota and lowa that the FBI also is checking to see if he could benefit from a $400,000 loan by the Farmers Home Administration to a business partner. The FBI would not confirm or deny that an investigation was under way. Jim Nichols, Minnesota state agriculture commissioner, said Wednesday that the FBI is trying to discover whether Block disclosed all his assets in financial statements required of government employees.

Jury's verdict first hurdle for DeLorean

JOHN DeLOREAN Faces lawsuits, bills

GOP focuses on improving economy Party platforms: A study in political contrasts

DALLAS (AP) Republicans are providing President Reagan a tailor-made platform that stands in stark contrast to the Democratic ideals expressed last month in San Francisco. The parties part company dramatically on issues from women’s rights to defense, from taxes to the status of Hong Kong. The GOP platform, completed by the 106-member GOP Platform Committee late Thursday, seeks to draw major distinctions between Reagan and Democratic presidential nominee Walter F. Mondale, especially on bread-and-butter economic issues. “During the Carter-Mondale administration, no group of Americans was spared from the impact of a failing economy ... Americans are better off than they were four years ago, and they’re still improving,” the GOP platform trumpets. That’s a far cry from the rhetoric of the Democratic platform, which states: “A second Reagan term would bring federal

Banner-Graphic "It Waves For All” USPS 142-020 Consolidation of Tht 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 48135. 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 ’l-10 Per Month, by motor route *4-95 Mail Subscription Rates R.R. in Rest of Rest of Putnam County Indiana U.S.A. 3 Months ‘15.75 ‘IB.OO *17.25 6 Months ‘30.30 *30.80 ‘34.50 1 Y *ar '59.80 ‘60.80 ‘69.00 Mall 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 lor republication of all tha local news printed In this newspaper.

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investigating John Block

world

Nichols, a member of the Democratic-Farm-Labor coalition party, has frequently criticized Block and the Reagan administration’s farm policies. Block was asked at a news conference whether the FBI had contacted him in connection with the investigation. “No, they haven’t contacted me at all,

LOS ANGELES (AP) John De Lorean wept tears of joy after being acquitted of cocaine-trafficking charges, but he still faces huge unpaid legal fees, lawsuits, a bankruptcy case and a British probe of $17.5 million allegedly missing from his failed sports car company. “Would you buy a used car from me?” the onetime millionaire automaker joked Thursday after a federal jury decided he had not conspired to distribute cocaine worth $24 million. The British government, which poured more than SIOO million into De Lorean’s defunct sports car venture in Northern Ireland, issued an immediate invitation for him to answer questions about the unaccounted-for $17.5 million. But on Thursday, De Lorean was a happy man as he heard the words “not guilty”

budget deficits larger than any in American history ... Interest rates, already rising sharply, will start to soar Investments in the future will be slowed, then stopped.” And even though the platform came through the process a bit more conservative than the president’s aides had wanted, there was little doubt of its winning his support. “When he reads it, he’ll love it,” said platform Chairman Rep. Trent Lott of Mississippi. “We are a conservative party and we have a conservative candidate,” said Reagan’s emissary to the platform panel, Drew Lewis. “In no way are we uncomfortable with a conservative document.” Approval of the platform at next Tuesday’s session of the Republican National Convention was assured. In fact, party leaders said it was unlikely that dissident party moderates would be able to muster the support needed to bring a

Doria safe

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PETER GIMBEL Amazed at outcome

and I don’t know anything about it,” Block said. “As far as my involvement, I have nothing to hide and I see no problem at all. Whatever they want to look at, they’re welcome to look at.” As he has before, Block suggested that recent criticism of his financial situation involving his partners, including John

pronounced eight times in a hushed courtroom, clearing him on all counts in a cocaine conspiracy indictment. Defense attorney Howard Weitzman called the jury’s verdict a condemnation of the government’s controversial “sting” operations. He said the jury “sent out a message to the Department of Justice that you can’t do to our citizens what you did to John De Lorean.” But De Lorean’s future was clouded by court cases in Miami and Detroit and the ongoing British inquiry into his business dealings. In London, legislators demanded Thursday night that the government ask De Lorean what happened to $17.5 million that a House of Commons investigative committee concluded was paid to a firm called GPD. GPD was described as a small Swiss

single dissenting minority report to the floor. Both the Republican platform and the Democratic platforms were drafted for specific candidates and specific campaign themes. In bothoinstances, each party’s standard-bearer was known before the other party’s convention. That gave each party a chance to go after the other’s soft spots. Thus, while the Democratic platform stresses what Democratic leaders see as Reagan’s biggest political liability federal deficits in the vicinity of $l7O billion the Republican platform makes much of Mondale’s statement that he would raise taxes to cut those deficits. And, to underscore that Reagan won’t spring a “secret” tax plan on voters if reelected, as Mondale has alleged, the GOP platform contains a plank stating Republicans “categorically reject proposals to increase taxes in a misguided effort to balance the budget.”

yields cash, but no fortune

NEW YORK (AP) A safe from the sunken Andrea Doria yielded only “soggy, murky” U.S. and Italian currency when it finally was pried open slight reward for a perilous dive to the ocean floor, a $2 million storm-tossed expedition and a three-year publicity campaign. Experts in the preservation of paper said they pulled “two shoeboxes full” of paper money from the safe on live, nationwide television Thursday night and expected to find a similar amount when they resumed work today. When the safe’s 650-pound door was pulled open, two bundles immediately floated to the surface, and others followed. “It’s all paper money,” said Michael Kaufman, spokesman for the Customs Service. “It’s dirty, murky, soggy currency $1 bills, $lO bills, S2O bills and Italian lire.” He estimated 15 bundles of bills were removed.

Top Hoosier salaries lagging

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) There are fewer high-paying jobs available for Hoosiers than in other North Central region states, according to a study by a former Indiana University official. Harrison J. Ullmann, until recently communications director at Indiana University, said his study of 1980 Census information on incomes of workers in 20 industries shows 1.22 percent of the Indiana workforce receiving $50,000 or more a year in 1979. In the North Central region, which includes 12 states from Ohio to the Dakotas, 1.52 percent of the workforce earned $50,000 or more. The national average was 1.66 percent. Ullmann said the differences may seem small, but they translate to employment in

“Bill” Curry of Galesburg, 111., may be motivated in part by politics. Block said in Davenport, lowa, on Tuesday that part of the problem has been stirred up by Rep. Tom Harkin, D-lowa, who is running for the Senate. “The politics this year have become more ridiculous by the week and by the month,” Block said. “I guess I’ve come to realize that any citizen that might want to stir up something is quite open to go to the FBI and ask for a routine investigation, and the FBI is obliged to do that. ” Block was asked if he would be willing to make public a full and complete financial statement in order to counter what he termed political thrusts. “I’m not sure exactly what that means, they have quite a bit,” Block said. “It seems to me, what hasn’t been written about me doesn’t deserve to be written.”

company registered in Panama with no known assets and about which almost nothing was known. In Miami, meanwhile, 132 investors including Sammy Davis Jr. and Roy Clark have filed a $414.7 million suit alleging De Lorean misappropriated funds intended for research and development of the gullwinged sportscar that bore his name. In Detroit, a bankruptcy court is attempting to unravel the complex claims filed by unsecured creditors of De Lorean Motor Co., which filed for protection under federal bankruptcy laws just days before De Lorean was arrested. A creditors committee has filed liens on all of De Lorean’s assets, including his homes in New Jersey, San Diego County and New York. Civil litigation also is pending in New York state.

That was such a strong plank that Reagan aides complained it didn’t give the president enough “wiggle room,” but they eventually signed off on it. The Democratic proposal doesn’t contain a plank suggesting a tax hike will be needed, since that assertion was contained in Mondale’s acceptance speech, delivered two days after the platform was adopted. However, it does pledge Democratic support for “reducing these intolerable deficits. We will reassess defense expenditures (and) create a tax system that is both adequate and fair.” The Republican document states that high deficits blamed on “CarterMondale” policies can be reduced with “continuing strong economic recovery” and “eliminating wasteful government spending.” The Democratic platform calls for endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment but advocates no other change in the Constitution. Republicans rejected several

Peter Gimbel, who raised the Credito Italiano safe from the wreck, said he was “as amazed as I’ve ever been in my life ... I would have bet you a thousand to one we’d never find one whole bill after 28 years on the bottom.” “It’s lire. It’s not the best money in the world, but it’s money,” said Riley Smith, a member of Gimbel’s crew. Gimbel said it might be weeks or months before the value of the currency was determined, because conservators had to treat the paper before it could be counted. The money, which apparently is still negotiable, was to be rinsed, wrapped and frozen before shipment to paper conservation centers in Philadelphia and Andover, Mass., Gimbel said. U.S. Customs officials at the New York Aquarium, where the safe was kept for three years in a tank full of sharks, assessed the safe’s value at $2,000 and

the high-income category that is 24 percent higher in the region than in Indiana and 36 percent higher in the U.S. than in Indiana. Indiana’s workforce was 2.48 percent of the total U.S. workforce, but it only had 1.82 percent of the high-paying jobs. Ullmann said. If the state had its proportional share of the SSO, 000-plus jobs, about 41,000 Hoosiers would have been earning that income, up from the 30,170 that actually did, Ullmann told the Indianapolis Star. Ullmann said he focused on the proportion of persons earning $50,000 or more on the assumption “this income category would include senior managers, scientists, engineers and other specialists in occupations and professions that require college educations.”

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JOHN BLOCK 'Nothing to hide'

Government prosecutors had portrayed the narcotics case against De Lorean as open and shut, supported by the best evidence possible videotapes vividly depicting the defendant’s alleged drug conspiracy. The most sensational tape showed De Lorean pointing at a suitcase full of cocaine and saying: “It’s better than gold. Gold weighs more than that, for God’s sake.” FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents had masqueraded as tough-talking drug dealers and crooked bankers. The six men and six women found De Lorean had been illegally entrapped by agents who dangled a lure of quick money before the financially besieged De Lorean as his company sank in a sea of woes.

efforts for a pro-ERA plank, but put into their platform a reassertion of "an historic commitment to progress for women” and a proposal to extend Individual Retirement Account coverage to homemakers. Republicans did call for two other constitutional amendments not found in the Democratic outline: an anti-abortion “human life” amendment and one to balance the federal budget. The Democratic document “recognizes reproductive freedom as a fundamental human right” and does not specifically call for a balanced budget. The Republican document supports Reagan’s military buildup, backs his “star wars” program for research into a defense system to shoot down incoming missiles and calls for an aggressive civilian space program. Democrats call for a nuclear weapons freeze, condemn Reagan’s star-wars plan and advocate savings in defense spending

assessed an import duty of $2lO. A diving expedition that braved storms and the hazardous 240-foot dive to the Doria's wreck recovered the safe in August 1981. Asked if he could recoup the $2 million spent on the expedition, Gimbel predicted, “We’ll be about 75 percent to 80 percent there after tonight. I’m hopeful we’ll pay back our 12 partners and maybe make a small profit.” But he said the profit from the two-hour television program, broadcast on more than 160 stations, would depend on its ratings. There was no sign of the “consignment of precious stones” that Gimbel had said was rumored to be in one of the ship’s 18 safes. Fifty-one people were killed when the Italian luxury ship Andrea Doria was rammed by the Swedish liner Stockholm.

Those jobs, Ullmann wrote in his report, are a measure of the opportunities to advance and to complete careers in a given profession in a given area. One of the reasons for the lower percentage of high-paying jobs is the state’s status as a branch plant state and the accompanying shortage of large corporate headquarters where many of a firm’s executives, engineers, lawyers and other top personnel work, he said. The lack of corporate headquarters also reduces demand for other professionals in such areas as advertising, business services, engineering, communications and printing and publishing, said Ullmann. If the state had more high-paying jobs, it would mean more money for the state’s economy and more revenues

Burford in assault on Ferraro WASHINGTON (AP) Despite the official displeasure of the White House, Anne M. Burford has jumped back into the political cauldron by spearheading a conservative group’s assault on what she calls “the real scandal” of Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Mrs. Burford, who has resigned under a stogm of criticism from two environmental posts in the Reagan administration, presented herself Thursday as the head of an anti-Ferraro “truth squad” and the star of a television commercial which assails the New York congresswoman for withholding information about her family finances. The effort is sponsored by the National Conservative Political Action Committee, an independent, pro-Reagan group headed by John T. Dolan, brother of the president’s chief speechwriter, Anthony Dolan. Mrs. Burford told reporters she had not discussed the mission to discredit Ms. Ferraro with anyone at the White House or in the official Reagan-Bush campaign, and “I don’t intend to.” John Dolan agreed with that version, noting “it’s against the law” for independent groups supporting a presidential candidate to coordinate with the regular campaign. Anthony Dolan said “I was completely astonished,” when he learned of the announcement by his brother and Mrs. Burford. But President Reagan’s chief spokesman, Larry Speakes, .said the Reagan team had learned of Mrs. Burford’s plans at the last minute and “protested and urged her not to do this,” to no avail. “It’s not the way we want to run the campaign,” Speakes said. In the TV commercial, not yet aired, Mrs. Burford begins by saying: “Witch hunt. That’s what I call it when the liberal media decides to create the news instead of report it. I ought to know.” “Now there is a real scandal on Capitol Hill, but you don’t know about it. Did you know that Geraldine Ferraro refuses to disclose her husband’s finances?” In the commercial Mrs. Burford asks: “Come on, Ms. Ferraro, what are you trying to hide?” While campaigning in the Northwest, Ms. Ferraro reacted to Mrs. Burford’s comments in the commercial by saying: “One would expect the Republicans to run a negative campaign, and that was just the beginning.” Asked if her efforts might not prove an embarrassment to the Reagan campaign in light of her own controversial background, Mrs. Burford said: “I’m very proud of my record in this administration.” Mrs. Burford resigned as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in March 1983 in the wake of mismanagement charges. Several of her subordinates were fired, and one, Rita Lavelle, was convicted of perjury.

Evansville meters doomed? EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - Evansville Mayor Michael Vandeveer says getting rid of parking meters might be one way to make the city’s downtown area more attractive. “Nobody likes meters,” Vandeveer said in announcing the appointment of a committee to study other ways to control parking. Vandeveer said Wednesday that the committee would report to the Center City Corp., an agency formed to implement the mayor’s downtown redevelopment plans. 7The 720 meters generate about $150,000 annually for the city. City Clerk Betty Lou Jarboe, who enforces the parking regulations, expressed doubt an alternative could be found. “We’ve got 10,000 to 15,000 people who work and shop downtown. If they can find a way to control parking, then lots of luck,” she said. “I’ll be interested in seeing what they come up with. I don’t like giving people parking tickets, but I haven’t found any alternatives.” She said the city aready has free one- and two-hour parking zones in other shopping areas, but those are hard to enforce because people wipe off the tire markings used by meter police to monitor parking time. Parking meters became an issue in the 1983 mayor’s race when Republican candidate David Koehler advocated free downtown parking.