Monday, October 10,1988
The Battalion
Page 13
World/Nation
Quayle’s qualifications still
[questioned by both parties
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dan Quayle
vas supposed to show the country last
iveekthat he “has no horns,” as one ad
viser said. Instead, the Republican vice
bresidential nominee remains the most
controversial candidate on either party’s
(ticket.
He admitted as much when he ob
served Friday that he had become “the
(ightning rod for the campaign. ’ ’
Aides say Quayle’s debate with Dem-
cratic rival Lloyd Bentsen, a confronta
tion many voters seem to think Quayle
lost, has not affected the campaign strat
egy for the Indiana senator or his
relationship with GOP nominee George
Bush.
But some Bush aides have been
quoted as saying privately that his debate
performance was assessed as a negative.
Bush himself rarely mentions Quayle
during campaign appearances unless he
is responding to reporters’ questions.
Republican pollster Kevin Phillips, in
terviewed Sunday in NBC’s “Meet the
Press,” said there is no doubt that vot
ers, including many Republicans, are
nervous about Quayle.
Filmmaker says
TV fails Dukakis
WASHINGTON (AP) — When
political filmmaker Charles Guggen
heim was asked to list the qualities
that Democrat Michael Dukakis pro
jects in this presidential campaign, he
responded with this: “controlled, ef
ficient, knowledgeable, predictable,
humorless.”
What about likable?
“No, I don’t think likable is one of
them,” he said.
Is that a problem?
“Oh, it’s a serious problem. ”
Guggenheim, whose career dates
back to his service as Democratic
candidate Adlai Stevenson’s tele
vision consultant in the 1950s, ex
presses a widespread view that Duka
kis has a serious image problem
which his TV campaign commercials
are doing very little to dispel.
“The smartest clerk in the world,”
was how ABC’s Peter Jennings, a
panelist for the first presidential de
bate last month, described the Massa
chusetts governor to preface a ques-
| tion about his passionless,
technocratic governing style.
“Passionless?” responded the
Democratic nominee with a smile. “I
| care deeply about people, all people:
working people, working families,
people all over this country. ’ ’
But does that concern come across
to people who watch Dukakis debat
ing or see him campaigning on TV
news broadcasts?
“Dukakis comes across like your
accountant or, God forbid, your den
tist,” said New York media consul
tant David Garth. “You know you
have to see him, but you don’t look
forward to it.”
“He is a very, very conservative
guy and he is a very deliberate guy
and he has no natural sense of hu
mor,” said Garth, noting that Repub
lican nominee George Bush doesn’t
display much more appeal.
“I don’t think there’s any warmth
or depth of feeling for either one of
these guys,” Garth said.
Judy Pearson, a professor of inter
personal communication at Ohio Uni
versity who has written extensively
on how women react to presidential
candidates, said Dukakis’ manner
doesn’t blend with his message.
“He tends to be very stiff, cold,”
she said. “He doesn’t have warmth,
even though the message tends to be
one of caring for people, for the hun
gry and homeless. ”
She said his delivery of the words
contradicts what he’s saying.
What she called his non-verbal
message is cold, short phrases being
thrown out like bullets.
“It’s very clear that the Democrats did
get a dynamic out of the Bentsen-Quayle
debate,” Phillips said. “The question is
how much the Democrats, whose cam
paign strategy so far this year has often
been somewhat inept, can take advan
tage of that opening.”
Democratic pollster Peter Hart, inter
viewed on the same show, said compari
sons of public and private polls before
and after the debate show a nationwide
switch of 2 or 3 percentage points in fa
vor of the Democratic ticket.
During an impromptu news confer
ence on his campaign plane late Friday,
Quayle rejected suggestions that he is
viewed as a liability by the Bush camp.
“I’d like to find out who did say
that,” he said. “I think I might have
some influence on their job security.”
As for Bush, “I don’t know how he
could have defended me any more vigor
ously,” Quayle said.
“He thought the debate was outstand
ing. He called me right after the debate
and he said ‘home run — an absolute
home run!’ And he believes that and still
believes that. ... I don’t know how he
could be any more vigorous in his sup
port.”
Some GOP officials have seen
Quayle, 41, as a liability almost from the
moment he was selected by Bush at the
party convention in New Orleans in mid-
August.
Intense media focus on his military
service, academic record and personal
life, combined with his youth and his
tendency to misspeak, created the image
of a lightweight candidate, especially
when compared with the patrician, 67-
year-old Bentsen.
Bush campaign chairman James A.
Baker III told reporters before the Oct. 5
debate in Omaha, Neb., that Quayle
would have to show millions of tele
vision viewers that he has no horns and
was steady, serious and substantive.
Quayle generally performed well, al
though he seemed stumbling and hesitant
when asked repeatedly what he would do
if he had to assume the presidency.
Crime levels rise,
end five-year fall
WASHINGTON (AP) — Crime levels
rose 1.8 percent last year, the govern
ment reported Sunday, ending a five-
year decline the Reagan administration
had attributed partly to vigorous law en
forcement and tougher treatment of crim
inals.
People living in the West were the
most likely to have been victims of crime
last year, while residents in the Northeast
were the least likely to be victimized, the
study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics
said.
Nationally, the number of personal
and household crimes rose about
613,000 in 1987 to .more than 34.7 mil
lion.
In 1986, the number of crimes hit the
lowest level in the 15-year history of the
government’s national crime survey,
34.1 million.
Even with the increase, crime levels
last year were 16 percent lower than in
1981, the peak year with 41.5 million
aste crew explodes tank
bought to hold poison gas
|N1TR0, W.Va. (AP) — More than
people left their homes Sunday
hile a hazardous waste crew blew up a
Iroded tank believed to hold up to 30
|)unds of deadly hydrogen cyanide.
he 4-foot-long cylinder was aban-
bned at the site of the defunct Artel
liemical Co. plant, now a federal Su-
fund cleanup site, with 3,400 other
inns and barrels of hazardous materi
als, many of them unidentified and most
Bfthem rusting.
■As little as 50 milligrams — a size less
I Ulan one-sixth the average aspirin — of
the hydrogen cyanide can kill.
Tlhe explosion occurred at 1:54 p.m.
and a fire was started to bum off the
Ik’s contents. Environmental Protec-
i tion Agency spokesman Harold Yates
gd that at 2:01 p.m. “no air readings
Bicated any hydrogen cyanide down
Jid.”
BePA officials had not been certain of
the tank’s contents, so analysts will ex-
Tine a videotape of the explosion to
|k for a telltale purplish corona, an in-
iation of the presence of hydrogen cy-
Jde, surrounding the main body of the
Same, Yates said.
He said the fire would have to be out
and the wreckage of the cylinder would
! have to be inspected before anyone
Pould be allowed back into the evac-
j .Hated area.
■Ambulances arrived shortly after
jjiawn to begin taking the elderly and
Eidicapped to evacuation centers, but
city buses from nearby Charleston that
lolled through the town were relatively
pipty as most people chose to go to rela
tives' homes and local shopping malls.
||“This is going to be the best thing
’s happend for the Charleston Town
fitter and the Huntington Mall. These
pie are going shopping,” Nitro
yor Don Kames said.
[before police sealed off the town,
ties toured the city to make sure ev-
jone had left the evacuation area.
fter the area within 1,000 yards of
the plant was evacuated, three men who
rk for a disposal company hired by the
federal Environmental Protection
jjency carried the cylinder 100 feet to a
There, the aging metal tank was
ripped open by explosives and its con
tents consumed in a gasoline-and-diesel
oil fire before fumes could drift away.
Yates said the contents would be allowed
to bum off for 30 to 60 minutes.
Wind socks pointed northeastward to
ward the more heavily industrialized area
of Nitro. The wind was estimated at 10
to 15 mph.
There was a possibility that the aging
chemical in the tank was unstable, so
while the disposal crew carried the cylin
der, one member kept a hand on it to feel
for heat that would indicate a chemical
reaction. Any reaction could have in
creased pressure inside the more-than-
20-year-old tank and cause a premature
blast.
The dirt and sandbag bunker, 12 feet
high with a 12-foot by 12-foot base, had
a metal lid to prevent shrapnel from fly
ing away and puncturing any of the other
dozens of rusted containers of dangerous
chemicals.
crimes committed, said Joseph Bessette,
acting director of the bureau, a Justice
Department agency.
Administration officials have sug
gested that the decline in crime was due
to sterner law enforcement and a more
cooperative public. Some academic ex
perts analyzing the data have stressed
that the size of the most crime-prone age
group, those in their mid to late teens,
has shrunk in the 1980s.
The crime-prone age group will con
tinue to decline in size until the early
1990s, demographers say, when it is an
ticipated by many experts that crime lev
els will take a decisive turn upward once
again.
Last year’s slight crime increases
probably suggest a greater concentration
of low-income groups at the young age
levels where crime goes on, said Alfred
Blumstein, dean of the school of urban
and public affairs at Camegie-Mellon
University in Pittsburgh.
Last year, the number of personal
crimes rose nearly 250,000 or 1.4 per
cent from 1986 to more than 19 million,
with increases in all four categories of
rape, robbery, theft and assault, which
includes murder.
The amount of household crime rose
by nearly 360,000 or 2.3 percent to 15.7
million, with increases in burglary, lar
ceny and motor vehicle theft.
In 1987, the number of personal
crimes per 1,000 people was 125 in the
West, 101 in the Midwest, 91 in the
South and 71 in the Northeast. The num
ber of household crimes were 223 in the
West, 166 in the Midwest, 179 in the
South and 116 in the Northeast.
The West was the only region to show
an increase in personal crime last year
compared with 1986, up 8.6 percent.
Scientist: Missed findings
hamper collider progress
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Discoveries
in particle acceleration, which may help
unlock the secrets of the universe, some
times slip past both laymen and scien
tists, says one of the physicists planning
the proposed “Super Collider” project.
The dearth of interest makes it diffi
cult to convince taxpayers that the pro
posed giant atom smasher will be worth
its $4.4 billion price tag, Chris Quigg
told a high-energy-physics conference
called by the University of Arizona on
Friday.
As an example, he cited the supercon
ducting magnets that would fire protons
through the super collider’s 52-mile-
long, underground oval.
Improvements in the magnets, he said,
would permit slimmer and more power
ful proton beams to be fired more effi
ciently and economically, cutting the
need for refrigeration to chill the mag
nets and allow them to carry electricity,
with little loss.
Indeed, he said, the refrigeration foi
the new proton smasher would be about
the same size as that used for a presen'
collider at Fermilab near Chicago, whicl
is less than a fifth the size of the pro
posed super collider.
But, although eight of the 55-foot-
long magnets have been manufacturec
and tested, Quigg said, there is so little
coordinated information out that he
doesn’t know who improved them.
Quigg is deputy director of the centra
design group, a team of about 40 scien
tists and engineers planning and devel
oping the SSC.
Since 1984, the group has been lo
cated at California’s Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory, but once President Reagar
announces next month where the SSC
will be built, the team will move there.
The Arizona site is in the Maricopa
Mountains between Phoenix ana uiia
Bend.
Six other states are still in the competi
tion. They are Colorado, Texas, Illinois,
Michigan, Tennessee and North Caro
lina.
Quigg compared the new collider
technologies to those developed as astro
nomical tools.
But he said the collider improvements
remain unknown.
Mexico’s U.S. market
threatened by OPEC
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico says
an OPEC price war is crowding it out of
its No. 1 market — the United States.
Beginning this month, OPEC govern
ments have offered extra price conces
sions to customers and moved to under
cut non-cartel competitors, including
Mexico, the government oil monopoly
Pemex said Friday.
Coupled with overproduction, the
concessions “have initiated an unde
clared, intense competition in prices
among countries in the Persian Gulf that
decided to maintain or increase their
market participation, searching for new
clients and seeking to displace estab
lished commercial flows,” Pemex said
in a statement.
Pemex on Friday announced price re
ductions for the United States and said
Saudi Arabia had displaced Mexico,
Canada and Venezuela as the United
States’ No. 1 oil supplier.
The monopoly said as a result of the
changing marketplace for crude that it
will earn less this year than the $7.9 bil
lion generated by oil exports in 1987.
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