Page 14
The Battalion
Wednesday, September 4, 1991
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7'ra very frightened by a split in society"
Soviet first lady recalls coup
MOSCOW (AP) - Raisa Gor
bachev, in an interview published
Tuesday, described how her
health failed and her blood pres
sure rose during last month's
failed coup — sleepless days and
nights she is still reliving.
The wife of Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev said in her
first public comments since the
abortive coup that she now feels
better, but fears a surge of ethnic
violence in her country.
“Again and again I'm reliving
what happened. And I'm very
frightened of a split in society,"
she was quoted as telling the labor
newspaper Trud.
Mrs. Gorbachev, 59, has not
been seen in public since she
walked from the airplane that car
ried the president and his family
from their dacha at the seaside re
sort of Foros in the Crimea early
22.
he newspaper did not say
when the interview took place.
Gorbachev said last week his
wife suffered a “bad bout" be
cause of the Aug. 18-21 coup, but
he did not name her illness.
1 “After three sleepless nights,
when all these events started to
wind up with particular speed,
(my health) became worse," Mrs.
Gorbachev was quoted as telling
Trud.
, “I had developed an acute hy
pertensive crisis that was accom
panied by a speech disorder. ...
Now I'm better, and must be treat
ed just a little more. For now. I'm
not leaving home," she was quot
ed as saying.
“Acute hypertensive crisis"
usually refers to a sharp rise in
blood pressure, most often in peo
ple already suffering from hyper
tension, said Dr. Henry Black of
the Yale School of Medicine.
“I feel and I live through all
the same things that our citizens
live through. I'm a sympathizer
with our society, and these are not
just words," Mrs. Gorbachev was
quoted as telling Trud.
During their three-day deten
tion at the dacha, Mrs. Gorbachev
said the family walked to a nearby
beach to disprove the coup plot
ters' statement that Gorbachev
was ill.
“We left the dacha grounds
and went to the sea with a definite
goal: so that people could see the
president was alive and well," she
was quoted as saying.
Mrs. Gorbachev told Trud she
learned of the coup when her hus
band came to her on the afternoon
of Aug. 18 and said “something
serious has happened, maybe ter
rible."
“Mikhail Sergeyevich told me,
T will make no deals with any ad
venturists. I will not give in to
blackmail. But we may have to
pay dearly for this. Everything,
our whole family. We have to be
ready for anything,"' Trud quoted
Mrs. Gorbachev as saying.
She said the family — daugh
ter Irina, son-in-law Anatoly and
two granddaughters — gathered
and told Gorbachev: '“WeTl be
with you,' This was a very serious
decision. We know our history,"
she said, apparently referring to
the Bolsheviks' execution of the
family of the last czar, Nicholas II.
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Cleanup studies of waste sites
remain inadequate, report says
WASHINGTON (AP) — Government studies of
the health risks from hazardous wastes at nearly a
thousand Superfund priority cleanup sites were “se
riously deficient," the General Accounting Office said
Tuesday.
The health assessments, which the Agency for
Toxic Substances and Disease Registry was required
by law to perform under a tight deadline, “generally
have not been useful" to the Environmental Protec
tion Agency and others supervising the cleanups, the
GAO said in a report to Congress.
“Because ATSDR health assessments have not ful
ly evaluated the health risks of many Superfund sites,
communities have not been adequately informed
about possible health effects," the congressional in
vestigators said.
If the agency cannot improve its performance.
Congress should consider abolishing the assessment
program, the GAO said.
The “EPA has seldom used the assessments, and
most local officials and community representatives
did not value the assessments highly, if they knew of
them at all," the report said.
Rep. John Dingell, who commissioned the report
as chairman of the oversight subcommittee of the
House Energy Committee, said it “paints a very trou
bling picture of the ATSDR's implementation of its
health assessment mandate/'
Dingell, in a letter to William L. Roper, the agen
cy's administrator, urged him to “move forward ag
gressively" to improve the quality of the health as
sessments.
Michael Greenwell, a spokesman for the agency,
said most of the recommendations already have been
put into practice.
“We agree that there were deficiencies in the
work we did in the past," Greenwell said. “Our focus
now is working with communities and making sure
they have ways to make input as the assessments are
done."
Local advisory panels are routinely established
and the public is invited to comment on draft assess
ments before they become final. Greenwell said the
agency is also working more closely with EPA offi
cials to make sure the assessments are useful to them
as well.
EPA issued a brief statement Tuesday saying it
will "continue to work with ATSDR to improve the
timeliness and quality of their health assessments.”
The Superfund program was established to iden
tify the nation's worst hazardous waste problems and
make sure they were cleaned up. Superfund amend
ments in 1986.gave ATSDR responsibility for looking
into the dangers to human health.a^ach site on the
national priority list.
Court reduces
given in S & L
DALLAS (AP) — A federal ap
peals court has reduced the
longest prison sentence given in
the crackdown on fraud in the na
tion's savings and loan industry.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in New Orleans last week
reversed six of the 13 fraud counts
for which Woody Lemons, former
chairman of the failed Vernon Sav
ings and Loan, was convicted.
The action dropped Lemons'
sentence from 30 years to 10 years,
his attorney, Michael Gibson, said
Tuesday.
Lemons was convicted in De
cember 1989 for misapplication of
funds, conspiracy and bank fraud
for soliciting a $9,000 kickback
from a loan broker in January 1986
and receiving $212,000 from the
same broker in April 1986.
The appeals court threw out
six of the counts after finding they
duplicated two others related to
the scheme. The court upheld con
viction on the other seven counts.
"We are disappointed that the
other points of error didn't result
jail sentence
crackdown
in a total reversal of conviction,"
Gibson said.
But he added that Lemons is
“personally very pleased that he's
got some light at the end of the
tunnel."
The decision reduces the time
Lemons would have been eligible
for parole from about 10 years to
between four and five. He entered
the minimum-security federal cor
rectional facility in Fort Worth in
June 1990.
Gibson viewed Lemons' sen
tence as extremely harsh com
pared to other former Vernon offi
cials.
The failed thrift's former own
er, Don Dixon, was sentenced this
spring to five years in prison and a
$600,000 fine on a 23-count fraud
conviction.
Ten others, including seven
former Vernon officers, have been
convicted of criminal wrongdoing
in the thrift's $1.3 billion failure.
After Lemons' sentence, the
lengthiest was five years given to
Dixon and several others.
Attorneys
make move
to drop
drug charge
MIAMI (AP) — Prosecutors on
Tuesday moved to drop a minor
charge against Manuel Noriega,
whose drug-trafficking and racke
teering trial is scheduled to begin
this week.
The charge to be dropped in
volved a drug pilot-turned-infor-
mant the government has paid
more than $500,000. It is the only
charge in the February 1988 indict
ment that mentions Panamanian
pilot Tony Aizprua, whose inter
cepted 1985 drug flight helped
launch the Noriega investigation.
The count said that, in viola
tion of federal law, Noriega
caused Aizprua to travel from Fort
Lauderdale to Panama in 1984 in
furtherance of the cocaine-traffick
ing conspiracy. It provides no oth
er details.
Diane Cossin, spokeswoman
for the Miami U.S. Attorney's of
fice, refused to explain prosecu
tors' reasons for dropping the
charge.
“We're not commenting as to
why we moved for dismissal of
this count," she said.
Noriega's lead attorney Frank
Rubino was not immediately
available for comment, his recep
tionist said.
The dismissal motion was on
U.S. District Judge William Ho-
eveler's desk but had not yet been
signed Tuesday afternoon. Ap
proval is usually only a formality.
The travel charge was punish
able by a maximum five-year sen
tence, only a small fraction of the
potential 145 years Noriega faced
on racketeering and drug conspir
acy charges. Dismissing the charge
would still leave the deposed
Panamanian leader facing 10 other
counts.
A separate 1985 Aizprua flight
not mentioned in the indictment is
usually pointed to as the begin
ning of the Noriega investigation.
Aizprua was spotted flying from
Panama to Broward County, and
was forced down on an empty
highway by drug agents. The pilot
initially escaped but was later
picked up and turned informant
against Noriega.
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