Banner Graphic, Volume 18, Number 254, Greencastle, Putnam County, 5 July 1988 — Page 2
THE BANNERGRAPHIC JULY 5,1988
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Iranian airliner accident
Aegis contracts are part of Pentagon bribery probe
WASHINGTON (AP) stigators in the Pentagon bribery probe are looking closely at how the Navy awarded contracts for its Aegis ship-defense system the type used by the USS Vincennes to shoot down an Iranian passenger jet. Pentagon officials now find themselves defending the system’s capabilities, in addition to facing questions about the role of private consultants in determining which defense contractors won the multi-billion-dollar Aegis production contracts. THE VINCENNES relied on its Aegis nerve system to track and destroy an incoming aircraft on Sunday during hostilities with Iran. The aircraft, mistaken for an Iranian F-14 attack plane, turned out to be an Iranian jetliner with 290 people aboard. Aegis, named for the shield jof the Greek god Zeus, combines computers, radar and weapons in a protective net around Navy ships like the Vincennes. Reps. Jim Florio, D-NJ., and H. James Saxton, R-NJ., have called on the Defense Department to determine whether the Aegis contracts are tainted by disclosures in the ongoing Pentagon purchasing investigation. A CHIEF TARGET of the bribery probe is Melvyn Paisley, a former assistant Navy secretary who oversaw division of the Aegis work. Paisley left the Navy in 1987 to become a consultant to, among others, a company that got Aegis work. Paisley, though his attorney, has denied any wrongdoing.
U.S. tightens security as the world deplores the disaster
By the Associated Press U.S. missions and overseas companies tightened security and toned down Fourth of July celebrations in response to the downing of an Iranian jetliner by a U.S. warship. London airport authorities removed American flags. Governments around the world deplored the deaths of the 290 people who were aboard the plane and said the disaster should intensify efforts to end to the 8-year-old Iran-Iraq war. THE UNITED STATES said U.S. Navy officers thought the Iran Air jetliner was a fighter that ignored seven warnings when they shot it down Sunday during a skirmish in the Persian Gulf. Iran called for all-out war in retaliation.
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MELVYN PAISLEY Divided Aegis work Aegis systems had been built for 15 years at RCA’s Moorestown, N.J., division when, in 1985, the Navy sought production changes despite the system’s then-stellar reputation. Unisys Corp. of Detroit eventually was awarded a contract to begin work on a key radar component. UNISYS SPOKESMAN William Beckham confirmed that Paisley was hired by the company as a consultant after he left the Navy, but said he did not offer advice directly on Aegis. Beckham said another Unisys consultant, William Galvin, “monitored” the Aegis proposals. Investigators reportedly are looking at links between Paisley and Galvin, and federal records show
“The United States government believes that the risk of Iranian terrorist actions directed against U.S. diplomatic, military and commercial facilities, as well as U.S. airlines and merchant ships, has increased appreciably,” said a statement telexed from the U.S. Embassy in Brussels to American firms around Belgium. “It is further believed that these actions will be deliberately designed to cause U.S. fatalities ... or spectacular destructions of U.S. official or commercial facilities.” AT HEATHROW Airport outside London, police armed with submachine guns patrolled the terminals. Baggage loaded onto American airlines came under close scrutiny because of fears of Iranian reprisals.
that Paisley’s wife had a $50,000 ownership share in a company associated with Galvin. Then-Navy Secretary John Lehman had a simple explanation for his order to “second-source” some of the work: Congress had told him to do so. Congress had required second sources on military work in an effort to spark competition. “I HAVE YET to meet a second source I didn’t like,” Lehman scribbled at the bottom of a May 1985 letter defending the shift. But despite the goal of increasing competition, the Navy announced that it would transfer the radar work without competitive bidding to the Sperry Corp. of Great Neck, N.Y., now part of Unisys. New Jersey legislators rallied to protect some 600 jobs at RCA and as many as 5,000 related positions. Saxton wrote to colleagues at the time that “RCA has been on time, below cost and has exceeded all performance goals.” The New Jersey group suspected that Rep. Joseph Addabbo, D-N.Y., chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, was behind the plans trying to get the Aegis work for his home state. Addabbo died in 1986. ‘THEY CLEARLY muscled their way in through Joe Addabbo,” said Rep. Jim Courier, R-N.J. As originally proposed, the Aegis competition was to include dividing both the work on developing and making the systems’ nearly 900 major components, as well as the delicate task of putting the parts together.
Authorities removed American flags put up in honor of the Fourth of July in a terminal that services most U.S. flights. An airport statement said it was “a mark of respect” for those who died. In Stockholm, Sweden, additional guards were deployed at Arlanda Airport near the service counters of U.S. air carriers. Americans in the gulf region observed Independence Day by going to work as usual, except for embassy staffs, who had the day off. THE 20.000 U.S. citizens in the gulf Arab states were advised to maintain low profiles, and Navy officials canceled leaves and shore passes for U.S. servicemen as a precaution against possible terrorist acts. In Jutland, Denmark, the annual American-Danish friendship festival on Independence Day drew only 9,000 people, compared to double that number in previous years. Gennady Gerasimov, spokesman for die Soviet Foreign Ministry, said the attack “shows American naval officers were not very competent, or to use an American phrase, trigger-happy.” He said the incident proved that American actions in the region were dangerous and demanded: “U.S. naval forces must immediately leave the waters of the Persian Gulf.” ON SEPT. 1, 1983, Soviet fighters shot down a Korean jetliner and all 269 people aboard were killed. Gerasimov said the Korean
Aegis’ 6 million parts and 4,900 cables are weaved together at RCA’s sl4l million “cruiser of the cornfields,” a mock warship in a rural area along the New Jersey Turnpike. The New Jersey delegation eventually collected enough congressional muscle to fend off part of the Navy’s plans. Lehman’s successor, James Webb, announced the Aegis assembly work would remain at RCA. BUT PLANS TO split work on Aegis components continued. Paisley in June 1986 ordered subordinates to implement the changes within four months. The trade journal Defense News reported Monday that RCA executives complained bitterly to Paisley, and that he told them they could expect a quid-pro-quo share of a separate $2.4 billion submarine electronics system. Defense News quoted an RCA spokesman and Paisley’s lawyer as denying the report, which it attributed to sources speaking on condition of anonymity. In October 1987, seven months after Paisley had left the Navy, the service informed the Armed Services panel that Unisys now one of Paisley’s clients was the sole bidder to compete with RCA. In January 1988, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin withdrew his objections to splitting the Aegis component work between RCA and Unisys. With that, congressional resistance crumbled.
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YITZHAK SHAMIR No room for cxriticism
plane was over a “strategically sensitive” area of the Soviet Far East while the Iranian jet was “flying only over its own territory and territorial waters.” The Soviet Union denounces Sunday’s attack but will not follow the “bad example” of “wild” American criticism after the 1983 event, he said. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel expressed sorrow about the loss of life but said the incident “is one of the side effects of hostile actions. There is no room for condemning anyone.” ZEEF SCHIFF, A respected Israeli military analyst, said on Israel radio that the incident should “raise questions among the Americans about their criticism of others in similar circumstances.” The British government supported the U.S. explanation for the attack, but Conservative lawmaker Robert Adley called the Americans “trigger-happy.” “They are burdened with this massive firepower but they still have not learned the lessons of the Vietnam War,” he said.
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Sheik ensures safety of U.S. hostages in Beirut
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) The spiritual guide for Iranianbacked guerrillas holding foreign captives in Lebanon was quoted as saying today that the hostages should not suffer because the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian jetliner. “I find no justification for making the hostages account for a matter with which they have no link,” Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said in an interview with the Sohofiya News Agency, a Lebanese newsletter based in Moslem west Beirut. “There’s no link between this subject (the hostages) and the shooting down of the plane.” Fadlallah is spiritual leader of Hezbollah, or Party of God, which is believed to be the umbrella for the pro-Iranian Shiite Moslem factions holding most of the 18 foreigners, including nine Americans, missing in Lebanon. The family of Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite, who disappeared in west Beirut 17 months ago while seeking to negotiate the release of U.S. hostages, appealed to Iran on Monday not to retaliate against the captives.
Iran calls for ‘real war’ against the Great Satan
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) Relatives and friends of the 290 people killed in the U.S. Navy’s downing of an Iranian jetliner chanted “Death to America,” and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini told Iranians to prepare for war with the United States. THE 87-YEAR-OLD Iranian leader’s designated heir, Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, called for total war. Foreign Minister AliAkhbar Velayati said Iran’s revenge would extend to countries that have helped the United States in the Persian Gulf. And Iran’s top diplomat in London hinted that the attack might endanger the lives of 18 Western hostages believed held by pro-Iranian extremists in Lebanon. Iranian divers searched for more bodies from the Iran Air Airbus A3OO, which was destroyed on a 150-mile flight from the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas to Dubai, across the Strait of Hormuz in the United Arab Emirates. THE UNITED STATES said the crew of the the USS Vincennes mistook the plane for an Iranian F--14 fighter and said it failed to respond to seven radio warnings. In Dubai, about 400 relatives of the dead and their supporters gathered Monday for a memorial service at a large Shiite mosque and listened to a speaker who called for retribution. The crowd regularly burst into chants of “Marg Bar Amrika,” or “Death to America.” Among the dead was a family of 10 that left behind a 13-year-old boy as the sole survivor. The family’s name was Samadi. The boy was among the mourners. Asabullah Jaafarzadin, who lost his father, was asked if he sought revenge. “OF COURSE THIS calls for a very strong response from the Islamic Republic,” he said. “We are all awaiting orders from Imam Khomeini and our government. Whatever they decide to do with America we are here to implement.” “We must all be prepared for a real war and go to the war fronts and fight against America and its lackeys,” Khomeini said Monday on Tehran radio, monitored in
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TERRY ANDERSON Snapshot taken by captors In addition to the nine Americans and Waite, two other Britons, a West German, an Italian, an Irishman, an Indian and two unidentified men are missing in Lebanon. American Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, is the longest held. He was kidnapped in Beirut on March 16,1985.
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AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI Calls for war agianst U.S.
Nicosia. "1 donate my worthless life for the sake of our victory.” Khomeini is rumored to be in poor health or near death, but the radio did not explain what he meant by his last comment. Iran accuses the United States, which it calls the Great Satan, of backing Iraq in its nearly 8-year-old' war with Iran. MONTAZERI SAID: “Fighting a full-scale war against America cannot be (done) by slogans and propaganda campaigns alone.” He called for “a principled fight against the main enemy, America, on the political, economic, cultural and military fronts.” Velayati did not specify by name what countries in the region Iran would target for revenge because they assist the United States. However, it was Kuwait that initiated a greater American naval presence in the gulf last summer by registering 11 of its oil tankers in the United States to afford them U.S. Navy protection from Iranian atack. Bahrain, meanwhile, provides some port facilities for U.S. warships. IN LONDON, Iranian charge d’affaires Mohammed Basti was asked whether the 18 foreign hostages in Lebanon, nine of them Americans, are now in greater danger. “It is a natural human reaction,” he said. “People in the area, they have seen this thing with their own eyes. ... Naturally they do not remain indifferent.”
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