U.S. considers charges in death plots
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Justice Department of
ficials are still weighing whether to bring charges
against those involved in the assassination plots
described by the Senate intelligence committee.
Department officials are studying a series of
statutes for possible use in any prosecution, in
cluding a cover-up charge. A spokesman says
thatAtty. Gen. Edward H. Levi will either seek
indictments or publicly explain why not in a
report on his department’s investigation into all
categories of alleged CIA wrongdoing.
In its 346-page report made public Thursday,
the committee said U.S. officials had instigated
at least eight assassination plots against Cuba’s
Fidel Castro and had launched another scheme
to kill Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.
The panel also described the U.S. govern
ment as implicated in the killing of Dominican
dictator Rafael Trujillo.
Of the nine foreign leaders mentioned in the
report, only Fidel Castro and his brother Raul
are still alive.
But the committee said, “No foreign leaders
were killed as a result of assassination plots in
itiated by officials of the United States.”
Ford, CIA didn’t comment
Neither President Ford nor the CIA co
mmented on the report.
The panel noted with surprise that “there is
presently no statute making it a crime to as
sassinate a foreign official outside the United
States” and urged Congress to enact such a law.
Its report told of a CIA official at the agency’s
old Washington headquarters who was asked to
develop plans to kill Lumumba in 1960. The
report raised the prospect “that conspiracy to
commit murder being done in the District of
Columbia might be in violation of federal law. ”
A second official, Richard Bissell, then head of
the agency’s clandestine services, “airily di
smissed” the prospect, according to evidence
submitted to the committee.
Justice Department officials say they are ex
amining the possibility of prosecutions based on
any cover-up) of the assassination plots. To bring
such a charge they would first have to decide that
a crime had been committed.
In considering that decision, the law that Ju
stice Department officials are examining most
closely makes it a felony to instigate, support or
take part in “any military or naval expedition or
enterprise” against leaders of a foreign country
with which the United States is at peace.
Department officials say the key legal ques
tion in determining whether that law was vi
olated is the definition of a military enterprise.
Prosecution directly under this law would be
limited to those acts committed within the last
five years, and only one incident in the co
mmittee report falls in that time period. But a
cover-up can extend long beyond the original
crime.
The department is studying federal conspiracy
laws and the possibility of referring a matter for
prosecution under state laws on which the time
limit for prosecution may not have run out, such
as conspiracy to commit murder.
Levi last June said: “If we were talking about
assassinations, I guess we really don’t, have a
statute of limitations.”
for legislation making it a crime for any U.S.
official or citizen to conspire, attempt or engage
in the assassination of a foreign leader.
The Senate committee report, fruit of a still-
incomplete, six-month investigation, was re
leased by the panel after the Senate spurned
appeals by the President to keep it secret. Ford
wrote Senate leaders Thursday that publication
would not be in the national interest.
In a closed session of nearly four hours, the
Senate debated how to handle the report, but
ultimately took no votes, either to block or en
dorse the document.
In addition to the Castro and Lumumba plots
and the Trujillo affair, government officials also
were aware of plots against South Vietnamese
president Ngo Dinh Diem and Chilean army
chief Rene Schneider where “the risk of death”
existed, the committee said.
The 11-member panel also said it came across
“evidence of CIA involvement in plans to as
sassinate President Sukarno of Indonesia and
‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier of Haiti.” Assassination
plots against Castro “sometimes contemplated
action against Raul Castro and Che Guevara” as
well, the committee found.
According to the report, there was enough
evidence “to permit a reasonable inference that
the plot to assassinate Lumumba was authorized
by (then) President Eisenhower” but stopped
short of a finding that “the President intended an
assassination effort.”
The committee also said “there was insuffic
ient evidence” that, while in office. Presidents
Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy or
Lyndon B. Johnson or any of their close advisers
authorized the assassination of Castro.
However, the committee held out the po
ssibility that various presidents may have pu
rposely obscured their role in assassination and
added, “Each must bear the ultimate re
sponsibility for the activities of his subordinat-
The committee “found concrete evidence of at
least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate
Fidel Castro from 1960 to 1965” using a variety of
devices that “ran the gamut from high-powered
rifles to poison pills, poison pens, deadly bacter
ial powders and other devices which strain the
imagination.”
On at least two occasions the plots “progressed
to the point of sending poison pills to Cuba and
dispatching teams to commit the deed,” the re
port said.
Today’s high 55
Today’s low 27
Tomorrow’s high 55
Chance of precipitation
today None
Chance of precipitation
tomorrow None
Cbe Battalion
Vol. 69 No. 48 College Station, Texas Friday, Nov. 21, 1975
Light freeze expected to
night. Cold today and to
morrow with winds 15
mph.
Candidate security
strained, U.S. says
Associated Press
! MIAMI — The Secret Service, faced with two
attacks on President Ford and one on president
ial candidate Ronald Reagan within three
months, is “over-extended" by the current large
field ofpresidential candidates, says a top service
official.
"It’s going to get worse, and there are more
candidates on the way,” said Bob Newbrand,
special agent in charge of the Secret Service
office in Miami following the attack Thursday on
Reagan by a young man wielding a toy gun.
Newbrand said that the service was au
gmented by agents from U.S. customs and other
federal agencies, but “we’re very thin right
now.
“We’re over-extended at this stage and we’re a
couple of months from the first primary,” he
said.
In Washington, Secret Service spokesman
Jack Warner said, “I just have to place that as one
supervisor’s opinion ... I would not say our
manpower is over-extended. I would say in this
period the Secret Service manpower will be ut
ilized to its upmost capacity.
Warner said the agency had budgeted with
die expectation of protecting 10 to 14 candidates.
There now are 12 announced presidential ca
ndidates, 10 Democrats, Ford and Reagan.
Secret Service protects candidates.
Warner said the agency is now protecting six
candidates in addition to Ford and Reagan. They
are Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace; R. Sa
rgent Shriver, 1972 Democratic Vice President
ial candidate; Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh; Georgia
Gov. Jimmy Carter; Arizona Rep. Morris Udall,
and Texas Sen. Lloyd M. Bentsen.
The young man with the toy pistol Thursday
was about a yard from where Reagan was shaking
hands with well wishers.
He was identified as Michael Lance Carvin,
20, of Pompano Beach, and was charged with
intimidating a presidential candidate and as
saulting a federal officer, Newbrand said. Ma
ximum penalties are one year in prison and a
$1,000 fine on the intimidation charge and three
years in prison and $5,000 fine on the assault
charge.
See Security, Page 3.
Reagan undaunted
by toy-gun episode
Associated Press
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Ronald Reagan,
undaunted by a toy-gun incident in Miami, fi
elded questions about some of his favorite topics
from a New Hampshire audience and then co
mpleted his first day of presidential campaigning
with a 30-minute autograph session.
Security was tight as Secret Service agents
checked handbags and tape recorders of the
more than 900 persons entering the convention
hall in Bedford, N.H., where the former Ho
llywood actor and California governor pa
rticipated in what campaign aides called a “Ci
tizen’s Press Conference.”
Reagan remained overnight in New Ha
mpshire, which has the nation’s first primary
Feb. 24. He was to fly to Charlotte, N.C., and
then on to Chicago and Los Angeles today, end
ing his first campaign swing after announcing
formally Thursday his challenge to President
Ford for the GOP nomination.
Reagan flew to New Hampshire from Miami,
where he encountered a man wielding a plastic
toy pistol as he shook hands after the first rally of
his campaign. The man, identified as Michael
Lance Carvin, 20, of Pompano, Fla., was gr
abbed by Secret Service agents and Reagan was
hustled away.
See Reagan, Page 3.
Campus
“BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SU
NDANCE KID”, starring Robert Redford, Paul
Newman and Katherine Ross, will be shown Fr
iday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Rudder Th
eater. Admission will be $1.
THE STUDENT ‘Y THANKSGIVING se
rvice will be held Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the All
Faiths Chapel. Rev. Malcolm Bane, Pastor of the
First Baptist Church of College Station will of
ficiate; music will be presented by the Century
Singers. Everyone is invited.
FORMER TEXAS GOV. JOHN CO-
NNALLY said yesterday in Houston that Ronald
Reagan’s entry into the battle for the Republican
presidential nomination will create “some in
terest’’ and he wouldn’t be surprised if Reagan
wins the primaries in New Hampshire and Fl
orida.
He spoke at a meeting of the National Industr
ial Traffic League and said he does not view a
challenge to President Ford by Reagan as a divis
ive factor in the Republican party.
City
THE ANNUAL CHRISTMAS parade will be
held Saturday at 10 a.m. down Texas Ave. from
University Dr. to Villa Maria.
The parade will feature local high school
bands, the Texas Aggie band and floats.
Before the parade, tire downtown Bryan me
rchants will sponsor an air show and ping pong
ball drop.
Ping pong balls will be dropped along Texas
Ave. Each ball is wroth a 10 per cent discount off
any one purchase at participating stores in Bryan
Saturday.
Forty of the balls will be worth prizes of up to
$30 in cash.
World
strike yesterday after the moderates in office
suspended government in a bid for military back
ing. Within hours of the call, an estimated
50,000 workers demonstrated outside of Pr
esident Francisco da Costa Gomes’ palace. The
suspension of government was aimed at pressur
ing Costa Gomes into giving the moderate ad
ministration the foil support of the politically
split armed forces.
RUSSIAN SPACE OFFICIALS left the Jo
hnson Space Center today, ending a series of
meetings over the past three years in both co
untries which made possible the first manned
international space misison.
Professor Konstantin D. Bushuyev, Russian
technical director of the flight said at a news
conference at the space center yesterday that he
regrets that the two countries will not have an
other joint mission until 1980. The United States
plans no cooperational space missions until the
space shuttle program is ready.
•
THE SOVIET-BACKED Popular Movement
army in Angola, reportedly strengthened by
Cuban reinforcements, has baited a spectacular
advance by its opponents from the south, the
Johannesburg Star said yesterday. In Luanda,
informed sources recently said that 2,500 Cuban
combat troops have been flown to the country to
bolster the MPLA.
Ticket time
ope springs eternal in Aggieland. Despite the cold, played in Kyle Field, November 28. At times the lines
Aggies turned out in force Thursday for the honor of extended into and along the street,
waiting in line for tickets to the A&M-UT game to be
Staff photo by David McCarrolI
It was play army time again Thursday for the Corps. This the day. The chopper used the polo field as a base of
HC-53 helicopter, full of Corps Cadets, could be seen operations,
churning its way through the skies of Aggieland most of
NYC may get
state tax help
Recent Soviet
nuclear tests
spew debris
Associated Press
ALBANY, N. Y. — The state legislature ap
pears ready to enact a $200 million New York
City tax-increase package — including a 10 per
cent hike in city residents’ income taxes — that it
believes necessary to get President Ford’s ap
proval for federal help to permanently rescue the
city from default.
State officials also said late Thursday they are
“very near” completing a $150 million financial
arrangement to help the city avert a possible
default next week.
The city survived a near brush with default on
Thursday, when the state’s Municipal Assistance
Corp. scraped together $100 million and rushed
it to the city treasury to help meet a $127 million
payroll.
But before that transaction, the city had br
iefly held up delivery of tens of thousands of
paychecks to city employes. The checks, which
eventually were distributed, were dated today,
but traditionally the city has defivered them a
day ahead of time.
A similar confrontation with financial collapse
is now threatened for next Tuesday, when of
ficials say the city is short about $60 million
needed to meet various obligations.
But Gov. Hugh Carey said Thursday that of
ficials were “very close” to gathering some $150
million needed to clear that hurdle and keep the
city afloat until Dec. 11 — enough time, Carey
hopes, for Congress and the President to agree
Houston firm
charged with
unfair dealing
Charges have been filed in Brazos County
Court against a Houston company for deceptive
business practices by its local branch.
County Attorney Roland M. Searcy said Th
ursday the charges allege that Mobile Home
Brokers, Inc., at 3300 S. Texas Ave., “made
materially false and misleading statements to a
prospective purchaser of a mobile home.” The
customer, Robert L. Bradberry of Huntsville,
relied on these statements and purchased a mo
bile home from the company, Searcy said.
If convicted in county court, the firm could
pay a fine of up to $2,000. The charge is a Class A
misdemeanor.
Searcy said his office has received numerous
complaints about misleading and deceptive pr
actices.
“Our policy is to thoroughly investigate the
charges and vigorously prosecute businessmen
who knowingly and recklessly take advantage of
Brazos County consumers,” Searcy said.
on some form of federal loan guarantees or other
aid to keep the city from foe jaws of default.
The governor refused, as in the past, to say
what the sources of that $150 million would be.
But a spokesman for Comptroller Arthur Levitt,
who previously had refused to commit state em
ploye pension funds for the money, said “a va
riety of state funds” would be used.
With Ford administration sources hinting that
the President will agree to federal aid if the state
legislature authorizes some $200 million in city
tax increases by early next week, Carey co
ntinued pressuring the legislators Thursday to
agree on such an increase.
The first two approaches offered for new taxes
— a boost in income and commuter taxes re
commended by Democrats, and a one-cent in
crease in the city sales tax to a combined city-
state levy in New York of nine cents on the dollar
as favored by Republicans — were jilted by the
hard partisan divisions they prompted.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Two of Russia’s re
cent big underground nuclear tests ap
parently have spewed some radioactive
debris into the atmosphere, U.S. in
telligence sources report.
Radioactive gaseous debris was collected
outside Russia’s territory following a 3.8-
megaton test on Oct. 18 and a two-megaton
blast on Oct. 21, sources said. A megaton is
the equivalent of one million tons of TNT.
The tests were conducted on the Soviet
island of Novaya Zemlyla in the Arctic.
Both the United States and the Soviet
Union are pushing underground testing of
larger nuclear weapons so they can co
mplete development programs before next
April when a new treaty goes into effect.
Operatic soprano Marilyn Horne flaunted her skill before a relatively
sparse audience in the Rudder Auditorium Thursday night. Horne was
presented by OPAS.