-*~~C.i'
PAGE 4—THE JOtfRNAL, OGDENSBURG, N.Y— THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1989
Editorials
Hemmings Ousted During CIA Cover-Up
atulations
mgs
Sperling's Inc. is celebrating its 70th year in business in the
North Country this week.
W)e?d just like to add our own tip of the hat tp the company for
its long tradition of service to the community and the region.
Over the years, Sperling's has been a strong employer and
good corporate citizen for Ogdensburg and the North Country.
It's officers, like Chairman Bernard Sperling and President
Mark Sperling, have always been willing to lend their personal
services for community projects. It's that kind of leadership in
the business community that have made the Sperling's a major
force in Ogdensburg.
Founder Mayer Sperling would be proud of what they've done.
We look forward to the next 70 years.
Hoffa's Not Buried
At Giants Stadium
*
Despite an assertion in the current issue of Playboy magazine,
Jimmy Hoffa is not buried under the end zone in Giants Stadium, according to federal and local law enforcement officers.
They have worked on the case since the former Teamsters boss
disappeared on July 30, 1975.
The source for Playboy's story is self-styled hit man Donald
Frankos, who says he helped kidnap and kill Hoffa. According to
Playboy, Frankos is currently serving a jail term of 25 years to
life for murder. But he has had that sentence reduced after turning federal informer.
Frankos claims Hoffa's death was ordered by New York crime
boss Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno as a favor to the late Tony
Provenzano, president of New Jersey Teamster Local 560.
Frankos says Provenzano was a "captain" in the Genoves'e crime
family.
Frankos says that Salerno ordered Hoffa lured to a meeting in
a suburban Detroit Mafia safe house by Anthony Giacalone, a
Detroit crime boss and Hoffa friend. Hoffa was driven to the
house by Charles "Chukie" O'Brien, who Hoffa helped raise and
who is often (but incorrectly) identified as Hoffa's foster son.
According to Frankos, Hoffa was shot and killed instantly. His
body was then taken to the basement where it was cut up and
sealed in a metal drum.
Frankos claims the body sat for months in the basement as
mobsters from New York and Detroit fought over who was responsible for its disposition. Finally Salerno agreed to take it.
The drum was driven to New Jersey, where, in the dead of night,
it was entombed in a wall of the new stadium, then under
construction.
Officially, the FBI has no comment. But an FBI spokesman denies an assertion in the story that the bureau came to Frankos
some time ago for help in the Hoffa case, that he told them the
same story he told Playboy, and that he passed a government he
detector test.
One FBI source says, "Frankos came to us long ago'with this
version of the Hoffa story. But it was apparent he was telling us
nothing that he could not have strung together from the books
and articles written about Hoffa."
The FBI has never officially explained Hoffa's disappearance.
But weeks after his disappearance, they pieced together a probably chain of events:
The FBI believes Hoffa was murdered because he threatened
to get back into union politics by running a campaign aimed i at
ousting corrupt Teamsters officials — specifically Provenzano.
Contrary to most published accounts, Htoffa was not going to
allege that Provenzano was giving organized crime access to
Teamsters pension funds, but rather the union was paying millions annually in inflated health insurance premiums through
mob-controlled insurance brokerage companies.
The'FBI believes that Hoffa was lured to a meeting by Giacalone. It is known that Hoffa waited at the Red Fox Restaurant,
and when Giacalone did not show up, he left after calling home to
see if Giacalone had called him. He was later seen getting in a
car, possibly driven by O'Brien.
The FBI believes Hoffa was quickly killed by two hit men from
New Jersey. Then the body was disposed of in a vat of molten
zinc at an auto bumper plating facility owned by two partners
with mob connections.
Therefore, according to the FBI, there was no sealed drum, no
shipment to New Jersey and no interment in Giants Stadium.
Besides the absence of any previously unpublished facts in
Frankos' account, there are a number of problems with key
details.
'' Foremost among those is his assertion that he was first contacted about participating in the hit, and was "put on hold" while
Hoffa was still in Lewisburg federal prison.
Frankos says that it was known Hoffa was about to be paroled
and would try to recapture his former leadership role in the
,Teamsters. This was a threat to the crime bosses who had control
lover ten-Teamsters president Frank Fitzsimmons. In addition,
'Provenzano, who had been in Lewisburg with Hoffa, was angry
$hat Hoffa had slapped him during a prison yard altercation.
Berry's World
BY JACK ANDERSON and
DALE VAN ACTA
Congressional efforts to install
an independent watchdog inside
the Central Intelligence Agency
won't help Bruce Hemmings.
The 17-year agency veteran
claims he was driven out of the government service last year after refusing to help cover up CIA knowledge of Iranian arms sales. Hem*
mings has since cooperated with a
Senate probe, which this summer
confirmed that the GIA and FBI
knew more than they admit about
the secret "White House operation
to supply missiles to Iran.
Hemmings has shed his spy
cloak and is now a self-styled
whistleblower, vowing to bring
rogue spooks to justice.
"In the area of intelligence there
is no mechanism available to an
employee or ex-employee to address, ... allegations of impropriety," Hemmings told our associate
Stewart Harris.
Hemmings has added his voice to
those advocating a bill proposed by
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. Specter's
bill would establish a presidentially
appointed inspector general armed
with statutory independence to expose fraud, waste and abuse in the
CIA. Independent inspectors general, similar to the one proposed by
Specter, are already keeping 59
other major government agencies
honest.
The CIA has had a relatively
toothless inspector general since
1952. He is appointed by the CIA
director and operates under his direction, an arrangement not conducive to dependence. Hemmings presented his concerns about the
Covert operation to CIA inspector
general William Donnelly before
going to Capitol Hill.
Hemmings has heard little since
being interviewed near his Vermont home by one of Donnelly's
agents. The CIA insists the investigation is still.open. But Donnelly
implied that the case was closed in
a June 9 letter to Hemmings that
said the inspector general had given the complaints a "full and thorough review."
Those words may return to
haunt Donnelly and the CIA. The
Senate's Governmental Affairs
Committee took Hemmings' information so seriously that they commissioned a probe by the Office of
Special Investigations at the General Accounting Office. The inquiry
— later inherited by the Senate Intelligence Committee — confirmed
that FBI and CIA officials traded
information about an American
arms shipment to Iran in late September 1985. That's at least one
month before the CIA officially
claims to have become involved.
The probe also produced evidence of a cover-up. Hemmings was
assigned to the Iran desk in late
1985. He was working with the
FBI, which had developed an intelligence network deep within Iran.
The FBI handed the item about the
arms shipment to Hemmings at the
CIA for analysis.
Hemmings was instructed to inform the FBI not to diseminate the
information further because it involved a sensitive "White House
operation."
The FBI complied — overlooking
the fact that the shipment violated
arms export law and stated public
policy.
In 1987, Hemmings says he was
again asked to cover up the
incident.
Then FBI Director William Webster was seeking Senate confirmation to be director of the CIA. During a closed-door session, senators
grilled Webster on the FBI's knowledge .of the arms sale.
Hemmings was ordered by the
CIA to prepare a memo about the
incident. When his memo noted
that he was advised to tell the FBI
not to spread the word because it
was a "White House operation," his
superiors exploded. A censored version was sent to Congress, Hemmings says.
Webster's confirmation hearings
started one month before the Iran
contra hearings opened in May.
The last thing the CIA wanted was
to disclose knowledge about the
arms shipments.
THE JOURNAL
USPS 403900
393-lCOO-lOOl-News Dept.
393-1002 (of Business Office
393-1003 for W a n t Ads Dept.
Rjbllshed by Perk Newspapers of St. Lawrence
Inc.. 306-314 Isabella St.. Oadensburg. N,Y. 13669,
Roy H. Park. Chairman a n d President; Charlej W.
Kelly. Edttor and General Manager; Patricia A.
Cbarlebois, Assistant General Manager; James E.
Reogea Managing Edrtor; Bryan J. Bowman, Business Manager; Mary McGoe, Advertising Manager; Rich Keene. Marketing Director; and Pete
Shea, Circulation Manager.
Published Daly Evenings Except
Saturday a n d Sunday
Republican established In 1830 a n d the Dally
Joumd esJabllihed In 1855 .Entered at the U.S.
Post Office In Ogdensburg. N.Y., as second doss
matter.
1
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
SI.15 per wk.
'Carrier
Motor Route
$6.00 mo.
Single/Copy
35*
Mall
3 mos,
6 mos.
1 yea
•* a
© 1989 by N£A, Inc.
9 J
"I'm sorry, sir. There's no such thing as an
ordinary 'walking shoe' any more."
mmmmmmmm^^BmmKsm
Zone A
In St. Lawrence Co.
$15.00
25.00
42.00
Zone B
Outside St, Lawrence Co.
3 mos,
S18.00
6 mos,
30.00
1 year
52.00
Carrier Service Is available at the foKowtng locations (within VKdge 8mltJ> the same day of publication: Hammond, Heuvelton, Madrid, Ogdensbura. and Waddngton. New York.
The Joumd Is n o t avaldble by m d l on routes
serviced by tube delivery the t a m e d a y of
publication.
POSTMASTER: Send address correcttoni to P a *
Newspapers of St. Lawrence, Inc., P.O. Box 409,
Ogdensburg, NY. 13669.
J
Hemmings, caught in a crossfire, had seen too much and was
hounded by the CIA until eventually being ware-housed in a job
without responsibilities. He finally
resigned in 1987.
PREDICTIONS OF THE
MONTH — Washington is a town
awash with rumors, some turn out
to be true, some not. With an ear
close to the political grapevine, we
pass on the following items that
you may read about in tomorrow's
headlines. On the other hand...
.— The United Nations will establish an international criminal
court to prosecute drug traffickers.
— Famed Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, will return to
the Soviet Union next year, and
will become the leader of Soviet
intellectuals.
— The 1988 Democratic nominees, Michael Dukakis and Lloyd
Bentsen, will campaign against
each other in 1992. Both will seek
the presidential nomination.
— The Justice Department will
crack down on college tuition fees,
with a grand jury delivering an indictment against some of the nation's most prestigious universities,
charging price-fixing for tuition.
MINI-EDITORIAL — What has
our national morality cometowhen
arguments rage among politicians
over whether it is more heinous to
be a homosexual or a pedophile.
Sexual perversions have become
a partisan issue, or so it appears.
On the Republican side, there is
Rep. Buzz Lukenaof Ohio, who was
recently convicted of having sex
with an underage female. On the
Democratic side, Rep. Barney
Frank of Massachusetts is being investigated by the House Ethics
Committee because of a relationship with a gay male prostitute.
Various news programs and talk
show have been featuring debates
between Republicans and Democrats over which man "sinned" the
most. In an age of runaway national debt, abject poverty, and an
environmental crisis, we suggest
that politicians who play preachers
are the real sinners.
JIM fi4KK0*-/4U£68>
FRAMP N0.L.
JMlU.
Where Will Malcontents Turn Now?
BY WILLIAM A. RUSHER
With the worldwide coUapse of
communism as a defensible political philosophy, and the by no
means unrelated decline of
American-style liberalism as the
domestic exponent offindinghappiness through Big Government, the
question has arisen as to where the
world's leftist malcontents will now
turn.
There is no chance whatever that
they will simply disappear; like the
poor (whom they are fond of championing, but rarely or never actually
represent), they are always-with
us. As long as envy and resentment
can find a lodging in the human
heart, or simplistic scenarios of
taking from the rich to give to the
poor can appeal to the wellmeaning but unsophisticated human mind, leftism in one form or
another will be a permanent fixture
on the world scene.
But which brand of leftism will it
be, precisely, in this day and age
when even well-meaning governments are almost universally recognized as the bumbling, rapacious
monsters they are, and the free
choices offreemen and women are
seen as the soundest guide to economic policy, and indeed to much
else?
It has recently been suggested
that environmentalism is the cause
to which the world's leftists generally, and America's liberals in particular*, are likely to turn next, and
I think the prediction may be exactly right.
Certainly the showing of the various "Green" parties in the June
elections to the European Parliament suggests that the movement,
far from fading away or failing to
gain ground, is growing briskly —
mostly (a significant point) at the
expense of the more orthodox leftist
parties.
seems highly doubtful that environmentalism can ever truly replace
Marxism, or even so eclectic a mess
as American liberalism, as a vehicle for long-range political domination. Marx professed to have discovered the "laws of history," and in
Marxism-Leninism many intelligent people thought they saw a scientific means of understanding,
furthering and dominating the development of human society. "Ye
shall be as gods" was its whispered
promise.
Environmentalists may hate Exxon and love sea otters, but they
For one thing, like leftism gener- have no formula for leading manally, environmentalism as a cause kind to a Promised Land nearly so
is descendedfromRousseau, whose enticing.
vision of the "noble savage" was a
close relative of the pollution-free
Arcadia that exists in (and only in)
the fond imaginings of the Greens.
Man, and above all economic man,
is an intruder upon the sylvan
scene, and in his corporate aspects
10-5-89
NORTH
is fit only to be drivenfromit. En•AK654
vironmentalism, therefore, proVA983
vides people who hate business
• AQ3
(and the prosperity it brings) with a
•Q
brand-new stick wherewith to beat
EAST
this familiar dog. Nobody who WEST
• J2
witnessed the lip-smacking enthu- • Q109
V52
siasm with which the environmen- • J 10 9 8
• 652
talists went after Exxon after the + J 9 8 7 6
• A 10 5 4 3 2
Valdez disaster can doubt that they
positively enjoyed their work.
SOUTH
Of course, the other parties —
left, right and center — have tried
to co-opt the environmental issue
as best they can, not least because
it has a certain amount of intrinsic
merit. The Greens, for their part,
have generallyfilledout their platforms with various modish leftist
nostrums, including neutralism.
But it seems clear that the Greens
will survive and probable that (up
to a point) they will prosper. The
reason is evident: They respond to
the ancient yens of the left in new
and more plausible ways.
Bridge
But in addition to providing new
excuses to resent Exxon and similar targets, the Greens appeal powerfully to the simplistic fantasies
and emotional impulses that we all
experience. Who wouldn't enjoy (at
least in theory) a simpler, more
"natural" world? And what heart
can fail to be touched by the photograph of an oil-drenched bird or a
dead sea otter in Prince William
Sound?
At the same time, however, it
Nixon TV Movie Shown
Despite Feeble Protest
BY JOSEPH SPEAR
Whatever your feelings about Richard Nixon, you have to feel sorry
for him. Poor fellow is driven from
office, spends 15 years in virtual
seclusion, is just«weeks away from
validating his status as an elder
statesmen with a conspicuous trip
to China — and he gets knocked
down again.
You've probably heard about it.
ABC Television will soon show
"The Final Days," a movie based on
the Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward book about the end of Nixon's
tenure. It features a distraught
president wandering White House
hallways and talking to pictures. In
a letter to the sponsor, AT&T, a
Nixon aide claimed the film is "a
distorted, malicious portrait" and
.asserted that the former president
would be switching his longdistance service to MCI.
An AT&T spokesman retorted
that the company values "all our
customers, and Mr. Nixon, too," but
said the firm would sponsor the
show anyway.
The former president's pathetic
protest and AT&T's flippant putdown of the erstwhile leader of the
Free World prompt t h e s e
observations:
• There is a lot of three-year-old
child in Richard Nixon's 76-yearold body. He exhibited the same
puerile behavior four decades when
he canceled his Washington Post
subscription because he didn't like
the way he was portrayed in Herblock's cartoons. As president, he
once barred the Post's society reporter, a 68-year-old grandmother,
from White House religious services and receptions.
In 1971, Nixon attended a White
House Correspondents Association
dinner and took great umbrage
when several awards were handed
out to reporters who had written
negatively about him. "I'm not a bit
thin-skinned," he wrote in a memo
to chief-of-staff H. R. Haldeman,
"but I do have the responsibility to
protect the office of the presidency
from such insulting incidents"
Never again would he attend such
dinners, declared the thick-skinned
Niuxon, and furthermore In the future for White House dinners,
White House receptions, church
services or any other event in
which I participate, I want no one
whatever invited from the press."
• Had Nixon exited office in a
semi-honorable fashion and if he
" ^ eni°ye,d a m o d e s t following,
AB£ officials probably would have
vetoed the'movie pTOJect^Tfirst
mention and deep-sixed any written record of it. Television magnates shun controversy and
energetically search for the lowest
common denominator.
• 873
¥ K Q J 10 6 4
• K74
• K
Vulnerable: East-West
Dealer: South
South
1*
5*
West
Pass
Pass
North
4 NT
6V
East
Pass
All pass
Opening lead: • J
Two Losers
Dwindle To One
By James Jacoby
North was so overwhelmed with his
high cards and distribution that he
simply asked for aces and bid six
hearts. South, uncomfortable with an
opening bid that had placed so much
credence on the singleton king of
clubs, awaited the appearance of the
dummy with some trepidation. South
had reason to worry. When the opening lead was made, declarer could see
two losers — the ace of clubs and a
spade. Because of the opening lead,
there was some chance. (An opening
lead of a club would have resulted in
East's taking the ace and returning a
red card; nothing would then have prevented the loss of a spade.)
So declarer won dummy's ace of diamonds, and cashed two high hearts
and then the A-K of spades, making
the queen of spades a winner in the
West hand. Next came the king and
queen of diamonds, followed finally by
the queen of clubs from dummy* The
contract was now made in a funny
way. East knew that declarer was left
with a losing spade and that he had
started with only one club. If Bast won
the club ace, he would have to play another club, which would allow South to
shed his spade while ruffing in dummy. The only chance for the defense
was for West to hold the club king. So
East played low, and a surprised South
won the king. That singleton king of
clubs was worth something after all.
James Jacoby's books "Jacoby on Bridge" and
Jacoby on Card Games* (written with bis father,
the late Oswald Jacoby) are now available at
bookstores. Both are published by Pharos Books.
© M89, NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN&