Banner Graphic, Volume 15, Number 60, Greencastle, Putnam County, 12 November 1984 — Page 2
A2
The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, November 12,1984
New Orleans World's Fair closes with deficit over SIOO million
c. 1984 N.Y. Times NEW ORLEANS The bankrupt 1984 World’s Fair closed and sadly began sweeping up the trash Sunday night after a disastrous six-month run. For the first time, New Orleans threw a party and nobody came, The Times-Picayune gloomily observed, That was an exaggeration, of course. By the time the last note from a closing parade had echoed and died over the Mississippi in what in some respects seemed like a New Orleans wake, the fair s turnstiles had clicked more than seven million times. Some visitors came a half dozen times and more and a lot of people thought it was a swell party. But nobody volunteered to pick up the tab. The fair left a legacy of unpaid bills totaling over SIOO million. Before the cleanup is over, the red ink is likely to swell by tens of millions. It is a bill this poor city and state can ill afford. When the fair opened May 12, it was with heady expectations, even though it was even then over its head in debt. Gov. Edwin W. Edwards, a Cajun, exhorted everyone: “Laissez le bon temps rouler! ” And, New Orleans did “let the good times roll.” But the bills rolled faster, crowds were sparse, there were personnel changes and scandals, including two grand jury inquiries and a Federal Bureau of Investigation operation to trace kickbacks. The early heady estimates of attendance of 15 million and up slid to 12
Baby Fae now 'doing nicely/ doctors report c. 1984 N.V. Times WASHINGTON Baby Fae showed the first signs of rejecting her implanted baboon heart two days ago but now appears to be responding favorably, her doctors revealed Sunday. The rejection problem flared briefly, was treated with drugs and now appears to have subsided, the doctors reported. The brief episode was the first hint of trouble in the pioneering animal-to-human transplant operation that has otherwise been portrayed as progressing remarkably well. But Baby Fae’s doctors stressed that the infant has responded to treatments and looks normal and well. “She’s doing very nicely this morning,” said Dr. Robin Doroshow, a pediatric cardiologiost on the medical team caring for Baby Fae, who appeared Sunday on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.” “She is breathing normal air now and not receiving any extra oxygen, and she’s off of antibiotics and eating well.” There was no immediate explanation as to why the doctors had waited until Sunday, after the episode was over, before confirming reports that Baby Fae was experiencing a rejection problem. As recently as Saturday, spokesmen for the Loma Linda University Medical Center, where Baby Fae received the heart 16 days ago, said they were not aware of any rejection problems. In a statement released Sunday afternoon in California, the infant’s doctors said: “Baby Fae has now lived longer with her transplanted heart than with her own lethally malformed heart. Sunday, Day 16, has probably been the best day of her life to date.” Almost all recipients of organs from unrelated donors experience rejection problems when their bodies’ immune system try to expel the transplanted organs as if they were foreign substances. In some cases, the problem can be lifethreatening.
Banner-Graphic "It Waves For AH" USPS 142-020 Consolidation ot The Dally Banner Established 1850 The Herald The Dally Graphic Established 1883 Telephone 653-5151 Published dally 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 *l.lO Per Month, by motor route *4.95 Mall Subscription Rates R.R. In Rest of Rest of Putnam County Indiana U.S.A. 3 Months *15.75 *16.00 *17.25 6 Months *30.30 *30.80 *34.50 1 Year *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 for republication of all the local news printed In this newspaper.
WE WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THIS TIME TO THANK YOU FOR MAKING OUR FIRST YEAR IN BUSINESS A SUCCESS. YOUR PATRONAGE HAS HELPED US GROW AND LET US EXPAND TO BETTER SERVE OUR PRESENT AND FUTURE CUSTOMERS. "ORI/ON BUSINESS CENTER 16 N. Jackson St., Greencastle, 653-2681 A
million and 11 million and finally t 09.2 million. Despite a last-minute surge of visitors, George Williams, the fair’s ebullient marketing director and chief promoter, the third to hold the job, conceded the final tally would fall two million short of the gloomy estimate. As a result, the fair will end up with “about $lO2 million in total debt," he said, with S4O million secured by corporate backers and $25 million by the State of Louisiana. That leaves $35 million in unsecured debt and the fair still faces the expensive task of dismantling itself. It will sell off its assets, buildings, booths and salvage, at public auction. But Williams said, “We’re just not in a position right now to give a dollar figure either on the demolition or the auction.” Why did the fair die its slow death? The immediate answers given by many include theories that it was the fault of slipshod marketing or the city’s muggy summer climate. But beyond that is the broader question whether the centuryold concept of a world exposition is not, in a world of theme parks and television, simply a romantic anachronism. “World’s fairs are passe,” said Harry Greenberger, president of the French Quarter Business Association, one of the groups with high hopes for a windfall that were dashed in the absence of huge crowds. “You can go to Disney World,” he said “You can go to Epcot. What world expositions used to be were the leading edge of the
world
Combat alert in Nicaragua
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) Nicaragua’s armed forces were put on a state of combat alert and the civil defense force was activated today in anticipation of military action, the Sandinista government said. Communiques from the Defense Ministry and the civil defense high command read over nationwide radio said the military moves were being made because of threats of attacks on Nicaragua. The communiques did not specifically mention the United States, but Nicaraguan government officials have repeatedly said recently that a U.S. invasion was “imminent.” The United States has denied the allegation. Meanwhile, the Soviet freighter that sparked the latest U.S.-Nicaraguan confrontation left port after unloading its cargo, and Sandinista leaders said U.S. suggestions that warplanes had been aboard were fabricated to make Nicaragua appear threatening. As the freighter Bakuriani sailed from the Pacific port of Corinto on Sunday, sonic booms were heard across Nicaragua for the fourth straight day. The leftist government’s Voice of Nicaragua radio station said the two booms were caused by a U.S. SR-71 high-altitude spy plane. Last week, U.S. intelligence sources said the Bakuriani might have been delivering MiG fighter planes to Nicaragua, but Sandinista officials denied these reports and U.S. officials have subsequently indicated they doubt warplanes were on board. The exact nature of the cargo remained unknown, but a source in Managua, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said the Bakuriani brought two Soviet Miß combat helicopters and one Mi 24 transport helicopter. Nicaraguan Interior Minister Tomas Borge, in a speech Sunday, said the Reagan administration is using “propaganda that is sophisticated and without impunity to make Nicaragua look
like a threat to the internal security of the United States.” Speaking in Matagalpa, about 90 miles north of Managua, Borge said the threat of a U.S. invasion “is increasing.” He said that if Nicaragua is invaded, “we feel we have the right and the duty to punish the aggressors in whatever part of the world.” He did not elaborate. Managua’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Miguel Obando y Bravo, a frequent critic of the Sandinistas, said in a homily, “There can be no peace while those who govern us talk of the desire for peace while talking of violence at the time.” A U.S. State Department spokesman, John Hughes, accompanying Secretary of State George P. Shultz to a meeting of tht Organization of American States in Brasilia, Brazil, said Sunday that talk of a U.S. invasion was “absolute nonsense.” Hughes also said that whoever told reporters that the Bakuriani was under surveillance “should be prosecuted.” Last week, U.S. intelligence officials leaked to the news media that the ship was being monitored and that the United States would not rule out a strike to prevent MiGs from being delivered. U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that there was “no confirmation” that there had been MiGs aboard the Bakuriani. A second Soviet vessel, the fishing trawler Ekliptika, arrived in Corinto at midday Saturday and left sometime that night, according to Bernardo Lang, an official with the Vassalli Shipping Co. in that port, which is about 105 miles northwest of the capital. The arrival of Soviet boats “is nothing new,” Lang said. “They used to come even in the times of Somoza. Nobody gets scared, and it’s just now that they’re saying they’re bringing MiG planes. Nobody has seen that here.” Anastasio Somoza was the dictator overthrown by the Sandinistas five years ago.
Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. dies
ATLANTA (AP) The Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., the civil rights pioneer who never surrendered to hate even though he saw his wife and his son, Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr., fall to assassins' bullets, has died. He was 84. “I don’t know anyone 84 who has lived a better life,” the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said following King’s death at Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday.
■ .rmam m 'Z ixfry' Myr «? ,n ns S§ y | •' ■ mm j, -'•-•-v
newest ideas and the newest technology. Now we see that every day on television.” Beyond that, more specific problems plagued the New Orleans fair. Many thought the sls admission price w’as too high, particularly for vacationing families. “This is not a wealthy city and it is not a wealthy state,” said Winston Lill, the fair’s archivist, who has been involved for 10 years. “I think it was a bargain, but it’s difficult to explain that to someone with a famiy of four confronted with a gate price of $15.” Although the fair’s main exhibits were air-conditioned, the city’s sultry summers are believed to have deterred some. Fair organizers say their marketing plan was initially sluggish. Organizers also may have relied too much on the reputation of New’ Orleans as a good-time city, ignoring intensive promotion until it too late. The fair was the creation of a group of Louisiana businessmen, headed by Floyd W. Lewis, chairman of Middle South Utilities. They organized as Louisiana World Exposition Inc., a private nonprofit corporation. As far back as 1980, Malcolm Baldridge, the United States Secretary of Commerce, told the orgnizers that the fair did not have enough backing to win the government’s imprimatur. Ultimately, in a last scramble, the fair raised enough money for federal approval, but even then the government committed
- f • • * * jJßjf sMm \ . IK 1 •, <; f3 1 1 W %«ISW AlMfwwM m PH V r 1 ■/" ■fV^Mly v ir^Ttr^
A visitor sobs as he finds the name of a loved one on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. A crowd estimated at 150,000 visited the Memorial Sunday
Vietnam Veterans Memorial a healing symbol, President says
c. 1984 N.Y. Times WASHINGTON President Reagan formally accepted the privately financed Vietnam Veterans memorial for the nation on Sunday, calling it a symbol of healing. “This memorial is a symbol of both past and current sacrifice,” Reagan said to a throng, estimated by the U.S. Park Police at 150,000 people. “The war in Vietnam threatened to tear our society apart, and the political and philosophical disagreements "that separated each side continue, to some extent,” he said. “It’s been said that these memorials reflect a hunger for healing.” “I do not know if perfect healing ever occurs,” Reagan continued, “but I know that in one sense when a bone is broken and it is knit together well, it will in the end be stronger than if it had not been broken. I hope that before my days as commander in chief are ended the process will be completed.” Reagan praised the veterans of Vietnam, calling them “true patriots” and Americans of “loyalty and valor.” He made several references to the 2,500 American servicemen still listed as missing in action in Vietnam. “Some may
King fell ill of an apparent heart attack at his home Sunday afternoon and was taken to the hospital, where “extensive resuscitation efforts were taken,” Christine King Farris, his daughter and only surviving child, told a hospital news conference. Dr. Bernard Bridges, King’s personal physician, said the minister died at 5:41 p.m. of an apparent heart attack. King, who suffered from chronic heart disease, was hospitalized in critical condition last month when a lung infection aggravated his ailment.
To The Voters, To Those Who Helped With My Campaign, To The People of Putnam County, To My Office Staff, Your Help and Kindness Is Appreciated. May God Bless All of You. MYRTLE COCKRELL Paid Pol. Ad
itself to no more than $lO million, a pittance compared with the S2OO million it put into Knoxville. Four months before opening, the New Orleans (air had already run through its entire $55 million line of credit, and it was only through a series of maneuvers, including a s:> million deferral of taxes owed to the city and a $lO million loan fiom the state, that the fair could open at all. When it did, President Reagan took the unheard-of step of declining to appear The expected crowds also did not appear and the fair fell deeper and deeper in debt. By the final week, 5,000 lair employees found the banks would not honor their paychecks. The fair made good for most of them, but by the end there was no one to pick up the trash; the pools and ponds had become stagnant and cluttered with debris. Scores of contractors had not been paid. Both a state and a federal grand jury were investigating the fair's fiscal affairs and three men were already under indictment in a purported kickback scheme involving the fair’s logo. New Orleans officials, hoping for the best, counted on the “residuals” from the fair, the revitalization of a sorely depressed area of the city, the structures that will be retained, to make it all up. Meanwhile, among those attending the fair’s closing days was John I). Kramer, general manager for the fair being planned for Chicago in 1992.
as a companion statue, depicting three Vietnam-era U.S soldiers, was dedicated. (AP Laserphoto)
PRESIDENT REAGAN "True patriots"
still be saved,” he said. As the president left the podium at the two-acre memorial beside the Lincoln Memorial, he was cheered. Jan C. Scruggs, the president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, announced that there would be another reunion of Vietnam veterans in 1988. Reagan delivered part of his brief address in such a subdued voice that many in the crowd had difficulty hearing him. In some passages, the elaborate public address system failed to make his voice audible above the noise of jet planes taking off from nearby National Airport. The president’s voice fell as he made what has by now become a common, often awestruck, comment of visitors: that each person’s reflection in the dark, polished stone of the memorial wall seems to embrace the names of the dead inscribed there. “Those who fought in Vietnam were part of us,” he said. “They reflect us.” “Let me say this to Vietnam veterans gathered here today,” Reagan said. “When you returned home, you brought solace to the loved ones of those who fell, but little solace was given to you. ” “Some of your countrymen were unable to distinguish between their native dislike for war and the stainless patriotism of those who suffered its scars,” he continued. “But there has been a rethinking there, too. Now we can say to you, and say as a nation, thank you for your courage.” “There has been much rethinking by
those who did not serve, and those who did,” he said. “There has been much rethinking by those who had strong opinions on the war, and by those who did not know which view was right. There’s been rethinking on all sides, and this is good. And it’s time we moved on, in unity and with resolve, with the resolve to always stand for freedom, as those who fought did, and to always try to protect and preserve the peace.” The ceremony on Sunday was to transfer the completed memorial wall to the government, and also a new statue unveiled earlier this week in a gesture of compromise to critics of the original memorial. The monument was originally designed as a sunken, 494-foot-long wall of polished granite bearing the names of 58,022 Americans killed or missing in Vietnam. The new statue is placed in front of the broad “V” formed by the wall. While the wall, which the Park Service says is on its way to becoming Washington’s most-visited monument, has received emotional and generally favorable responses from visitors, its critics denounced it as “a wall of shame.” The statue, dedicated on Friday, is of three American servicemen who seem, like Sunday’s visitors, to be scanning the wall for their names. Before the president arrived at 4:30 p.m., in the remarks by leaders of veterans’ organizations and officers who had commanded in Vietnam, the retired Army Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the former Vietnam theater commander, received a rousing welcome. About 40 guests, among them Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, sat on the dais before a blue banner that proclaimed in white letters, “Welcome Home.” Scruggs, a former enlisted man in Vietnam. whose group raised $7 million ip private donations to complete thf memorial, reminded the crowd of the struggle to build the monument when he introduced Secretary of the Interkir William P. Clark. “I have a few words to say for Jan Scruggs,” Clarjt began. “Instead of Vietnam veterans building a memorial to give the government," he said, “maybe the government should have built a memorial to give the Vietnam veterans.” The remark brought loud cheers.