National
THE BATTALION Page 9A
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1981
Luxury liner called a death trap
Andrea Doria spooks divers
United Press International
MONTAUK, N. Y. — The lead
er of the team that explored the
Andrea Doria says now that the
treasure from his expedition is safe
in a tank guarded by sharks, he’ll
never return to the eerie luxury
liner one diver called a “death
trap.”
Several of the divers said they
were spooked during their deep-
sea search. They said they sensed
a spirit in the murky interior of the
ship, pitch black and webbed with
discarded fish nets that
threatened to entangle their air
lines.
A rusty black safe, pulled from
the depths of the Atlantic Ocean
by divers who returned from a
month-long expedition Wednes
day, is being kept at the New York
Aquarium at Coney Island in a salt
water tank filled with sharks. The
tank is to be opened on live televi
sion at the end of a documentary.
Expedition leaders hoped the
salt water would preserve from
further deterioration the $4 mil
lion in cash and jewels the safe is
believed to hold.
Although divers failed to recov
er a second safe, Peter Gimbel,
53, the expedition leader and de
partment store heir, said he was
not going back to the theoretically
unsinkable liner that had become
almost an obsession with him.
“No, sir, I have no plan ever to
return to the ship,” said Gimbel,
speaking with reporters through
an intercom in the decompression
chamber where he and four other
divers were adjusting to sea level
atmospheric pressure.
Elga Andersen, Gimbel’s wife,
said the divers described “a pre
sence” when they discovered the
safe.
“It was almost as if the ship was
saying: ‘You’re not going to get my
safe,”’ she said.
Anderson said the adventure
marks the “last chapter in the
book” of the mystery surrounding
the liner that collided with the
ship Stockholm in heavy fog off
Nantucket, Mass., July 25, 1956,
killing 50 people.
“She (the Andrea Doria) did not
make it easy,” Gimbel said. The
exploration was conducted at a
depth of 230 feet.
Don Hollis, a diver who spent
17 days in the murky innards of
the Doria, called the liner “a deep
and magnificent wreck.”
“You have visions of well-
dressed men and women as you
swim through the first class cock
tail lounge — but the ship is a
junkyard now.”
“It’s like a death trap,” he said,
“because you can get tangled in
lines totally invisible in the
water.”
He described swimming
through the watery ruins of the
ship’s marble chapel, imagining
the elegant passengers aboard in
the moments before the collision.
“It was a very eerie feeling,”
the Oakland, Calif., diver said.
The discovery of massive dam
age to the liner’s hull astonished
shipwreck experts who speculated
the liner sank because one of its
watertight compartment doors
had been carelessly left open.
Some of the divers, who spent
between 13 days and 30 days at
extreme depths, were reported to
be suffering from possible respira
tory ailments, but they were said
to be in generally good condition.
U. S. Customs officials required
Gimbel’s representatives to post a
$2 million bond to cover the safe
and other items recovered from
the Andrea Doria, including dis
hes, a glass door and religious ob
jects from the ship’s chapel.
£ IRS to rule on high interest rates
Would-be assassin jailed,
awaits psychiatric tests
United Press International
BALTIMORE — A man
armed with five guns and poss
ibly under the influence of a
powerful hallucinogenic drug,
who told Secret Service agents
he was en route to “kill Presi
dent Reagan,” was jailed Thurs
day awaiting psychiatric tests.
Isom Joseph Dean Jr., 24,
was arrested Wednesday in
Towson, Md. — less than an
hour’s drive from the White
House — after his sister re
ported he was driving her car
without permission.
He was charged with
threatening to assassinate the
president and held without
bond.
Ben Frazier, Dean’s attor
ney, said in a pretrial report his
client had taken PGP, a power
ful hallucinogenic drug, and
had been drinking hours before
he was arrested.
U.S. Magistrate Paul Rosen
berg ordered that Dean be sent
to a federal detention facility in
Springfield Mo., for a 60-day
examination that will include
psychiatric tests.
Dean’s sister, Linda Ciorpel-
lo of Baltimore, said her brother
had undergone psychiatric
treatment “four or five years
ago.” Dean’s attorney said
Dean had been treated for con
ditions resulting from the use of
PGP and LSD.
Police who stopped him on a
routine complaint found three
scope-equipped rifles, an M-18
semi-automatic rifle, a loaded
.22-caliber Smith & Wesson re
volver, and a pair of high-
powered binoculars in the car.
Dean, who lives in Sparks,
Md., told Baltimore County
Police he was on his way to
Washington, D.C. to “kill Pres
ident Reagan and a couple of
police officers.”
In an affidavit, Secret Service
agents said Dean told them he
intended to kill the president
and “planned to sit around and
wait until the opportunity pre
sented itself because the presi
dent always has to come out.”
Police stopped Dean earlier
in the day when his car was
stuck in mud at a private resi
dence but nothing was found
when the vehicle was searched.
He threatened Reagan when
he was stopped after police got a
complaint from his half-sister
that he was driving her car with
out permission.
Police spokesman E. Jay Mil
ler quoted Dean as telling
arresting officers: “You’re
lucky. If I hadn’t had to stop for
gas in Towson, you would not
have gotten me. I would have
killed the president.”
Miller said, “He certainly
had the weaponry to do it, and
from talking to him we felt he
had the potential to do it. ”
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Financial
firms monitored reports from
Wajls: ^ Washington Thursday to see if in-
^ vestment incentives that have
brought in a flood of money by
offering high interest rates would
be ruled taxable by the Internal
Revenue Service.
The IRS scheduled a news con-
p ference to take a stand on promo-
"tions offering up to 50 percent in
terest to depositors investing in
special “repurchase agreements”
under which their funds would be
rolled over into new “allsaver”
certificates on Oct. 1.
Last weekend, the IRS express
ed doubts about the legality of the
promotional programs and said
the promised high returns may
nullify the tax-free provisions of
the certificates.
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Administration officials were
quoted by The New York Times
Thursday saying the IRS would
not grant tax-free status to the
bonus interest packages. The
Times said the IRS would stand by
the position outlined Saturday by
denying tax-exempt status to sav
ings packages that require the
funds to go into the certificates.
An IRS spokesman had no im
mediate comment on the news
paper report.
Meanwhile, banks, credit un
ions and savings and loan institu
tions were not letting the IRS’ ear
ly warning signal get in their way.
New York’s Chase Manhattan
Bank inaugurated a revised plan
Wednesday designed to safeguard
the all-savers tax exemption.
Chase originally advertised an
extraordinarily high-interest
Motorists’ militia formed
to protest parking tickets
United Press International
NEW YORK — Massachusetts motorists, who feel they were
wrongfully issued $70,000 in New York City parking tickets, are trying
to solve their problem in a revolutionary way — with muskets, militia
men and a cannon.
Twelve of them, supported by cannon fire and 25 militiamen with
muskets, marched with fife and drums Wednesday to City Hall and
declared the tickets were issued by a wayward computer.
“We didn’t pay King George and we won’t pay you,” they said in
proclamation to Mayor Edward Koch after they fired their miniature
cannon.
The gun was fired illegally, but the protesters were not arrested or
given summonses.
The event was arranged by WBZ radio station disc jockey Dave
Maynard, who stumbled onto the apparent computer snafu during his
early morning radio show in Boston while talking on the telephone
with a listener.
The listener, John Restuccia, said he last traveled to New York on a
bus in 1965. He said he was wrongfully issued $26,590 in parking
tickets from 1975-1978 on a license plate he turned in “seven to eight
years ago.”
The Newton, Mass., fireman said he first thought someone was
playing a joke, but a letter from a law firm demanding he make good on
the tickets frightened him.
Restuccia said he heard the tickets were issued as a result of a
computer error in the city’s Parking Violations Bureau. He said he told
the bureau that and has not heard from them since.
New York Transportation officials did not meet with the contingent
from Massachusetts.
Later Deputy Commissioner Lester Shafran, head of the PVB,
issued a statement that said “when dealing with 500,000 outstanding
parking summonses issued to Massachusetts motorists, mistakes will
occur.”
bonus for people who signed up
early for certificates.
But it withdrew its offer of 40
percent interest after the IRS’
weekend warning.
Chase said it will offer a repur
chase agreement with a rate of ab
out 17 percent on money invested
until Sept. 30. The new plan eli
minated the IRS objection to a re
quirement making conversion to
all-savers certificates mandatory.
“There will be no obligation on
the part of the consumer to rede
posit the proceeds into a Chase
tax-saver certificate or any other
Chase account,” a spokesman
said.
Many other financial institu
tions kept advertising their origin
al deals despite the IRS warning.
Customers who read the fine print
in the ads — when it was included
— find the exceptionally high “in
terest” is effective only until Oct.
1, when the depositor is expected
to convert the money into the new
tax-exempt certificates at their
regular rates.
The U.S. League of Savings
Associations, with other trade
groups, had accused the IRS of
misinterpreting the law, confus
ing the public and jeopardizing
the future of the new certificates
questioning the promotional cam
paigns.
The certificate, authorized by
Congress to help savings and loan
institutions survive in a period of
tight money, allows individual
savers to exclude the first $1,000
in interest from taxes. Couples fil
ing joint tax returns can exclude
the first $2,000 in interest, even if
all certificates are in the name of
one spouse.
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